#CriticalAnalyser

First things first, I like jackieshauna a lot, and they were the reason I watched the show and my first Yellowjackets ship. Obviously, like every other relationship in the show, it’s codependent and toxic as hell. But I feel like a lot of people tend to dogpile all the issues onto Shauna, especially since season three, most likely due to a mix of recency bias and the halo effect

It kind of annoyed me, and I have kinda talked about it before in the past. But Jackie played a much bigger role in causing a lot of the issues than you give her credit for, and if we’re being honest, she was a lot more obsessive and possessive over Shauna than it was the other way around.

Honestly I have a bit more to say, but I decided to do a bit of a character analysis before throwing out statements so you could understand my reasonings better

Firstly, Jackie is a character meant to haunt the narrative. By this definition the role that she is meant to actually play will be minimal by design, but will leave behind a major impact

Their death is meant to move the plot forward as the story cannot function if they are alive and can mess around with the plot.

Jackie is pretty much written to revolve around Shauna, while Shauna doesn’t revolve entirely around Jackie

And before you yell “But Shauna is haunted by Jackie!” Let me explain, I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, I know what I’m saying.

First off, Jackie was raised by parents who were emotionally absent but held high expectations for her. Jackie does feel the pressure of living up to those standards around everyone in her life, of putting on a mask and being Miss World.

The only and first escape Jackie ever had from this pressure was Shauna. Chances are, the first person in Jackie’s life who thought she was the coolest person ever was probably Shauna. Also, children’s way of loving people and relationships with others are heavily influenced on the way they are loved by their parents. Jackie’s parents love her like a possession more than their child. Jackie is an extension of them, not her own person, as seen in season one episode six, where they present and mourn a version of Jackie that is not the Jackie we know.

It’s interesting how we see Jackie’s parents insist she loves rabbits, only for the following scene with Jackie to be a scene where she shows obvious disdain towards them.

Or even the fact that they immortalize Jackie in a statue shown off to the masses with the words “Taylor Furniture” written on the side, which is weird given the fact that they could’ve put something there about their daughter, and not their business.

To Jackie, she is taught that owning people is the same as loving them, and that might help to explain her controlling behavior when it comes to Shauna

In some way, I think the beginning of their friendship might have been similar to the beginning Bakugou and Deku’s friendship (before the bullying). Bakugou’s ego is stroked by Deku thinking he’s the coolest guy ever, and it goes straight to his head.

Obviously, this isn’t a 1:1 comparison and there are plenty of differences, but chances are, in the beginning of their friendship, Jackie probably took the reins and claimed Shauna as her best friend, and Shauna simply went along with it, accepting that Jackie was definitely the more knowledgeable one.

This behavior is common and pretty normal in five year old children, but it stops being normal when you’re nearly eighteen years old and the dynamics are still very similar.

Jackie probably has abandonment issues and projects them heavily on Shauna, Shauna ends up becoming her emotional support, and a bit of her personal project. She loves Shauna the way she was taught to love, like something she owned.

Obviously I don’t think she actually saw Shauna as property or something, but she definitely saw Shauna as an extension of her. The validation Shauna provided her with when they were children was like meth to young jackie and she craved it to keep her self concept afloat.

She has a very weak sense of self, and since she has built it around Shauna’s acceptance and awe, it is incredibly weak, and very breakable, and heavily reliant on Shauna, which puts the weight of her sense of self on Shauna’s shoulders. Which would be heavy for someone to bear.

Obviously I don’t think she did it to hurt Shauna and saw nothing wrong with doing that. To her, it was a normal way to show love. Because that’s how her parents loved her, you know, the entire love = ownership thing. But to Shauna, who was not raised that way, being owned meant being inferior and that felt like an insult and she took it as such.

Especially when the dependence was also being served alongside random insults and constant negging. Jackie relied heavily on Shauna emotionally while being too insecure and emotionally constipated to even understand some of her less than platonic feelings towards Shauna, so she insulted her instead and assumed Shauna would understand how she felt

“You’re the best friend I ever had, you know that right?”

The idea that Jackie understood her feelings better than Shauna was laughable given the fact that she still had sex with Travis the day before she died

Anyways, it’s pretty obvious that Shauna becomes the only real relationship Jackie ever has. Her relationships with the other characters are not as strong as her relationship with Shauna, Jackie does care about them, but seems distant from them in spite of commanding influence

On one hand, she is sort of the Yellowjackets personal lacy, and the others look up to her cause she seems to have it all, the looks, the popularity, the money, while everyone else lacks that in some way, whether it’s the money (Van, Natalie) being a person of color (Mari, Lottie or Tai), or not being desirable or cool enough to be popular (Misty, Shauna), making them kind of put her on a pedestal and feel jealous, which gives her influence.

On the other hand, which no one likes to acknowledge, Jackie also was purposefully setting a barrier, a polite barrier, but a barrier nonetheless. Jackie used her queen bee charm to set a polite distance from the others and thus came off more as the cool older sister that everyone liked, than an equal.

The only person that Jackie seems to be completely open with is Shauna, and only Shauna. None of the other Yellowjackets knew Jackie outside of her outward image, her parents were in the dark about all her interests, Jeff obviously couldn’t read a room to save his life. Shauna is the only person who ever really knew Jackie past her outward appearance.

Hell, Jackie’s relationship with Jeff was set up by Shauna. Everyone talks about how Jackie haunted the jeffshauna marriage, but nobody talks about how Jackie dragged Shauna into her relationship from day one. Jackie most likely gave her detailed explanations on what they were doing, or complained endlessly about whatever caused their breakup of the week.

Shauna was their unofficial third, probably around them so often, Jeff had enough time to fall for her, and decide that she was more interesting than Jackie.

This obvious dependence is backed up throughout the entirety of season one

The first time Jackie appears on screen, being touched by her own boyfriend, we see a picture of her and Shauna together.

Afterwards, she shows obvious disinterest, and brushes her teeth after blowing Jeff. Her demeanor entirely changes upon seeing Shauna, as she is laughing and excitedly talking about their dorm in Rutgers.

Clearly, Jackie is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, and it’s obvious that she is at home here, comfortable enough to mess with Shauna’s radio, and even honking her car horn without permission. Everything that is Shauna’s is hers by extension, and that’s how she views it.

It’s kind of sad as when she is with Shauna, it’s the only time she feels heard and not judged, which explains why she takes control of Shauna so often.

And it also mirrors the shaunahat relationship as well. I think people deny this because they don’t like to acknowledge Jackie’s actions as wrong, or as damaging as they were.

She also might have even sent Jeff out of he front window specifically for Shauna to see, given how involved Shauna seems to be in their relationship.

She is left out of the loop during the Allie situation and seems to be more concerned with the party (and dressing Shauna up for the party) than she is about Allie’s broken leg.

This ends up being a thing. It’s not that Jackie doesn’t care about others at all, it’s just that Shauna trumps everything else in Jackie’s mind, she cares about Allie, but she’s more invested on getting Shauna something good to wear.

This continues to happen throughout the season, Shauna always seems to have other concerns while Jackie is primarily focused on Shauna and Shauna alone.

In the pilot, Shauna has interactions with Tai, Natalie, Lottie and Allie as she is involved in Tai’s plan to make sure Allie plays better for Nationals. She stands against Tai when it goes too far and comforts Allie when she breaks her leg.

While Shauna expresses her concerns about Allie, and her leg, Jackie is more focused on getting Shauna something to wear. Jackie, like when she was in Shauna’s car, is comfortable in Shauna’s bedroom as though it’s her own, messing around with her stuff and sitting on her bed.

She compliments everyone on the team, but when it gets to Shauna, she asks if Shauna has forgiven her. Which again showcases her main concern, being in Shauna’s good graces.

When it’s obvious she isn’t mad at her, Jackie is comfortable enough to start negging Shauna again, knowing now that Shauna’s anger is not directed at her.

She insults Shauna a few times, criticizing her music choice, her dancing skills and how she was bad at holding her liquor. But I’m more interested in her compliment

“You’ve always been there for me, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had”

This kind of encapsulates her feelings on Shauna. Shauna is always there for her, she can rely on Shauna. What Shauna wants or her interests aren’t important, it’s Shauna herself.

All she needs is the guarantee that Shauna will always be there to catch her, to be there to serve her emotional needs and that keeps her afloat. That’s why she wants Shauna to follow her to college, her insistence that they attend Rutgers University together and decorate their dorm a specific way is born out of severe separation anxiety.

Jackie knows her popularity is a superficial construct tied strictly to the halls of their New Jersey high school. She is terrified of adulthood because she fears that she lacks the depth to survive it by herself.

She doesn’t just love Shauna, she needs her as a safety net and blanket, to soothe her fears and serve her needs

By chaining Shauna to her college life, Jackie ensures she brings her primary emotional life-support system into the real world. Shauna is Jackie’s safety blanket against the reality of the world, and this is showcased the moment that they land in the wilderness.

This behavior is also caused by her social status as well. Jackie was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and chances are, she probably never even had to make her own bed, let alone do anything by herself entirely. She is probably afraid that she will fall apart by herself even if she wants to be independent and leave her parents

So she tries to have the best of both worlds, by bringing Shauna with her. Kind of like how she dates Jeff for you know, eye candy purposes and status reasons, while making out with Shauna on the down low, and treating her like a spouse and a mother figure all at the same time.

Shauna fills the void that Jeff and her parents and the world can’t fill, she makes out with Jackie, and practically plays Mommy, Therapist, Spouse and Best friend all rolled into one, without any acknowledgment or validation.

It also explains why Jackie gets so easily jealous when Shauna is around anyone else,

When you play all four roles for someone who demands total exclusivity, they view you not as just a friend, but as their personal property and sole emotional life-support system. Anyone else who takes Shauna’s time or attention is seen as a direct threat to her survival.

Because Jackie has an absent mother and no other close friends, she has a massive emotional void. Shauna fills that void by acting as her mom, therapist, best friend, and surrogate spouse.

Since Jackie has built herself around Shauna so heavily, if she gives even a fraction of her energy to someone else, her entire support system collapses. It’s like a threat when Shauna prioritizes someone else over her.

To Jackie, Shauna has to see Jackie the way she sees Shauna. She had to be the most important person in Shauna’s life, because if she wasn’t number one priority, every minute of the day to Shauna that was similar to Shauna not loving her at all. She could not handle being second to anyone, no matter how dire the circumstances.

To Shauna, who has a bad habit of pouring gasoline on issues instead of talking them through, she just makes the situation worse by having sex with Jeff, and never really talking to Jackie about it.

Honestly, by the pilot, it clearly seems as though Shauna has some sort of understanding that being around Jackie forever was just going to make things worse and even prior to the pilot, she seems to hang around the others (Tai and Lottie for instance) given the fact that Tai trusts her judgment, and look to her for help in the Allie plan

She also applies to Brown without telling Jackie, and gets in, which was probably one of the most mature decisions she has ever made, the script says it all

Shauna wants to forge her own identity and leave Jackie’s sphere of influence, while Jackie wants to keep Shauna with her for the rest of her life. This makes it pretty evident who is more dependent on who, and this shows itself throughout the entire season

To give Jackie credit where it’s due, she does give Shauna Valium and her necklace before the plane takes off, and remembers Shauna’s fear of planes. So yeah, her obsession is born of genuine love.

When the plane crashes, Shauna attempts to pull Van out of the burning plane, while Jackie is the one to pull her out physically and keeps her from getting back inside. Usually, I would chalk this down to a fearful reaction driven by fear, but given how often she behaves like this, even in less dire circumstances, it does prove my point

In the immediate aftermath of the plane blowing up, “killing” Van, Jackie’s immediate response is to beg Shauna to understand.

The biggest emergency to Jackie isn’t Van’s supposed death, but Shauna abandoning her in anger. She cares about Van and feels bad about leaving her, but in this moment, Shauna’s anger, no matter how rightful it was, could not be directed at Jackie or else she would implode, it would be like chopping off her lifeline.

(Sounds a lot like foreshadowing huh? 🤔)

She does go back to attempting to lead, once she is sure that Shauna is not angry anymore.

But the imbalance only gets worse now that Jackie is cut off of every other safety net she once had. The already unbalanced friendship becomes even more unbalanced as Jackies reliance on Shauna is more obvious than ever before.

Like this scene in the script

Or this

“Jackie tenses at the thought of Van and Shauna getting along”

Jackie honey, I need you to be serious right now, you just left her to die, 😭 you don’t have the right to be acting this possessive.

And then you got both of these scenes, where the mommy part shows itself.

Or

Look me in my eyes and tell me that doesn’t sound like something a mom would say to their child. Not even Javi, the twelve year old whose dad just died, needs to “close their eyes and pretend it’s bacon”.

Like, you’d expect Shauna to be saying this to Javi, the kid she kind of sees as her child, not Jackie, her best friend who is the same age as her. Afterwards, Shauna votes against Jackie and decides to go to the lake instead of staying at the plane.

Jackie punishes her by insulting her and purposely attempts to make her jealous by hanging out with Mari, clearly stringing her along and using her.

Eventually she has a breakdown and Shauna puts aside her annoyance and hurt feelings and comes to Jackie’s aid.

Shauna does end up being comforted by Jackie, but the intent behind this was to make Jackie feel better, by opening up and being purposefully vulnerable, she’s giving Jackie the upper hand and making her feel more in control, and thus making her feel better and a lot less like a complete loser, at her expense. It’s called altruistic self deprecation.

Funnily enough, Shauna does this with Jeff as well, and I make actually make a post on that soon.

Throughout their time in the wilderness, Jackie doesn’t really do much at all. The others grow annoyed as she sleeps in while the others wake up earlier, and she does nothing while everyone else is pitching in. Shauna ends up covering her work and doing her chores for her instead of telling her to do them herself.

But when everyone starts noticing, she attempts to get Jackie to do something, and tries to teach her how to butcher. Jackie lashes out by purposefully putting Shauna down. “

“Like making people feel judged? Ooh I know! Cutting up dead things!”

Again, the others annoyance about Jackie’s lack of help doesn’t shake her, it definitely does make her feel bad, but she can shake it off and ignore it, but when Shauna calls her out, albeit a lot less rudely than the others, she immediately tears up.

When Shauna realizes she is pregnant, she worries heavily about Jackie’s reaction when she finds out, and her emotional reaction afterwards

Hell Tai literally says that “it’s not worth dying to keep Jackie from finding out”. Pretty much yelling to the audience that Shauna was willing to attempt suicide by abortion to keep Jackie from finding out the truth

Keep in mind, Shauna knows Jackie is an emotional wreck already and was hanging on by a thread. Obviously some of this is coming from of Shauna’s own lack of self worth, but it’s still crazy to think that Shauna was so afraid of Jackie’s emotional reaction that bleeding out in the forest was a better choice.

It gets worse, especially with the context of the caregiver dynamic. In Shauna’s mind, Jackie’s emotional stability is worth more than Shauna’s physical survival. Shauna has been conditioned to believe that she had to be the buffer that protects Jackie from reality. Because she knows that only she can do it. Jackie will not listen to anyone else.

Back in Wiskayok Shauna maintained the dynamic by going to Rutgers or staying quiet when insulted, things that are annoying but harmless. Out in the wilderness however, "keeping the peace" and protecting Jackie’s emotions meant attempting a DIY abortion in a forest. The wilderness, acting as a pressure cooker turns habits built in civilization into an accidental suicide pact.

This highlights how utterly terrifying and volatile Jackie's fragility actually is, and the horrible effect her death would have on Shauna

When Shauna goes upstairs to Tai instead of Jackie, she feels personally betrayed, which kind of fits with what I was saying earlier about her attachment issues.

Tai becomes her new competition for Shauna’s attention, as Shauna grows closer with Tai. This is kind of interesting, given their already established one sided rivalry, as Tai also saw her as someone unworthy of the captain position, and Jackie sees Tai as a thief who had stolen Shauna from her

Even when Tai is going out on an expedition that she might not return from, Jackie is more concerned about her position in Shauna’s life. She sees Shauna’s new relationships with the others like Tai and even Javi as competitors for her place in Shauna’s life.

If she’s not number one in Shauna’s life, then she might as well be chopped liver. Especially without anything else to hold onto. Which is a very unhealthy way to look at relationships guys (please don’t try at home)

When Jackie realizes that Shauna was pregnant and that Tai knew about it before her, that shakes her entire sense of self. She had built her sense of self around being Shauna’s best friend, and Shauna in her mind, not only didn’t tell Jackie about losing her virginity, she told Tai instead of her.

She immediately sets upon figuring out the truth by reading her journal without permission. As a consequence, Jackie finds out the truth, that Shauna had had sex with Jeff and was carrying his baby.

This shakes her entire worldview as it showed that Shauna was fully capable of building an entire reality where Jackie did not exist. It went against how she saw herself and her reality. Her self concept was built around the belief that Shauna would always be there to support her, and be in awe of her.

On top of that Jackie had no secrets from Shauna because Jackie had no deeper layers to hide. Her life was entirely performative, lived out in the open for public approval. Because she had no hidden interior world, she could not fathom that Shauna had one either. The revelation of Shauna’s diary destroyed Jackie because it proved Shauna had a whole universe inside her that Jackie didn't own.

I saw a fic that kind of said this a little better, but Jackie is not without inner depths, she has just been raised to believe that they weren’t necessary. Her mother for example, tied her self worth to her daughter and her wealth, without looking inward. She lives a lonely life without real relationships because of that.

Jackie has done the same, she has tied her self worth to Shauna’s acceptance and love, and has been empty inside because of it. She is definitely aware of that emptiness, which is probably a main factor in her depression to begin with. But instead of looking inward, she just clung harder to Shauna to escape that feeling.

Even after she finds out the truth, she still can’t stay away from Shauna because of that. She still wears Shauna’s clothes and relies on her for everything. Except that she is more suicidal than ever.

Despite Shauna’s growing pregnancy, she continues to watch over Jackie’s emotional and physical health as it continues to worsen, and then blows up after Doomcoming.

During the argument itself, Jackie treats Shauna like she was the unfaithful spouse, but treats Tai like the other woman

Despite the fact that she has started the fight over Doomcoming, she lashes out at Tai more than Lottie or Mari, the actual perpetrators

Eventually, Shauna finally lets out her grievances at Jackie in the cruelest way possible. Jackie is in absolute shambles, as it completely destroys Jackie’s sense of self

For most people, this would have been heartbreaking but bearable, but to Jackie, this is the end of her world as she knew it. Her sense of self, for over a decade, had been built on Shauna’s love and affection, and now Shauna has told her that she finds her a weak person she felt sorry for, and has confirmed her own insecurities, is absolutely unbearable.

I don’t think she was lying when she said that she couldn’t bear to look at Shauna

Her final attempt at regaining some control or dignity fails, and she freezes to death, waiting for Shauna to come and apologize.

Jackie quite literally could not handle a day without Shauna being there, this looks even worse when you compare her to Javi or Coach Ben. Almost every other character can, to some extent, push forward even when completely alone, in much worse situations.

They have a sense of self, no matter how damaged and twisted, that can withstand the harsh pressure they are subjected to. Shauna didn’t lie when she said Jackie was weak. Compared to practically every other character, she was.

This only becomes worse when you think about how Shauna must’ve felt afterwards. I personally think that after that argument, in some ways, Shauna felt kind of free. She had finally let out years of resentment, and finally proved to herself that she could stand on her own decisions. She probably had a nagging fear in the back of her mind that she might lack autonomy when Jackie was involved, and she finally managed to put her foot down. Only for Jackie to die the very next day.

This is Shauna’s worst fear coming to life. She had already known that Jackie wanted her to come and soothe her ego and prioritize her feelings. And she didn’t do that.

Let me say that again, the one time Shauna outright refused to put Jackie’s wellbeing above everything else, Jackie died. She was supposed to get Jackie, that’s how it always went. And to her, not doing so was the same as murdering her with her own hands, because in her mind that’s what happened.

She knew Jackie would listen to no one but her, that’s she was waiting for Shauna to bring her inside. Even Tai told Shauna to go get Jackie, it was that well known that Jackie would only listen to Shauna. To the rest of the group, anything Jackie related was Shauna’s issue because she would ignore them if they tried.

After Jackie died, Shauna, struggling with grief and incredible guilt, attempts to atone for her failure to prioritize Jackie in life by doing so after her death. She spends time in the meat shed, speaking to a corpse and laughing with her and playing games like old times, and starts to forget about the others

But she fails to completely center Jackie the way that Jackie centered her. When Tai burns Jackie’s corpse, (the jackieshaunatai of it all) she is no longer able to summon Jackie’s ghost the way she used to for the rest of her time in the wilderness. Her inability to entirely center Jackie must’ve only made her feel worse as it would make her feel like a bad friend, and made her feel as though she was failing Jackie once more.

She’s forced to worry about other things, like her baby’s birth, the food supply, Lottie’s cult beliefs, her baby’s death, the hunt, the cabin fire, trying to be antler queen, hunting Coach Ben, becoming antler queen, the scientists and an assassination attempt.

Jackie is there, of course, but she’s in the back of her mind, not in the front. Even in the adult timeline, she has multiple things to worry about, other people in her life to think about.

This is not to say that she does not love Jackie because that would be a lie, but Jackie is not the only person who has an affect on Shauna.

Jackie is not the only love interest Shauna had that committed suicide (Melissa), she’s not the only person who died after she chased them away (Lottie), she’s not the only dead person whose things Shauna keeps as a memento (Javi), She’s not the only person Shauna hallucinates either, or even the only person who she has opened up to. Jackie isn’t the only person who ever got to know Shauna.

Shauna’s marriage to Jeff is also done for purposes outside of Jackie, like WB, and defanging herself and also punishing herself for other transgressions, like Javi, Mari, Coach Ben

On the other hand, Shauna is the only person who got to know Jackie in a personal way, the apple of her eye and was practically her everything in every single way possible, and practically her lifeline. Which is great for jackieshauna purposes, but it gets really annoying when people try to switch it up.

I think it’s because people prefer Jackie over Shauna, because Jackie’s more likable, but the cold, hard truth of the matter is. Jackie’s life revolves around Shauna, but Shauna’s does not revolve around Jackie, which people tend to dislike.

For example, I saw people take this scene as fact for some weird reason despite how obviously false the statement was

People for some reason were agreeing with Jackie, laughing about how pathetic a liar Shauna was. Even though we quite literally saw physical evidence that Shauna did have a life outside of Jackie

The entire reason the two of them were even having issues was because Shauna did not want her life to orbit around Jackie! The idea of being shackled to Jackie for the rest of her life doesn’t bring emotional security, it just makes her feel inferior and insecure.

Even attempting to live in Jackie’s shadow is done as punishment, and she’s miserable doing it!

Shauna loves Jackie, don’t get me wrong, but it’s been proven multiple times that Shauna is somehow incapable of centering Jackie and Jackie alone. She is miserable when she does it and only attempts to do so as punishment or penance.

This is not regarding being around Jackie on its own, but being with only Jackie and having her as the center of her world

You know how I said Jackie was written to revolve around Shauna, well I also believe that Shauna was written to do the exact opposite, which is what pushes the conflict between the two.

Jackie clings harshly and too tightly and ends up forcing Shauna to cut her off because she’s unable to breathe with Jackie clinging on so tightly, it’s like a greek tragedy

But the issue is when the audience relates too heavily to Jackie, and sees Jackie as an extension of them.

This happens because, firstly, she is the relatable character. It’s hard to relate to a bunch of cannibals, but the one girl who just doesn’t get the wilderness mojo is easy to project onto. Jackie also is palatable, her flaws easy to ignore, because being a lazy person, especially after a plane crash is easy to understand. Having sex with your best friends boyfriend however 😬, yeah not really.

Being cheated on though? Everyone can relate to that! So Jackie becomes the relatable one, and a self insert for a lot of people. And they do not like the idea of Jackie being less than slightly flawed at best.

It’s easy for them to take Shauna’s habit of exacerbating issues and use it to free Jackie of any responsibility. At some points people even go as far as to deny there was an issue.

It’s easier to say that Shauna was just trying to “look like a victim” than acknowledge that Jackie was also just as responsible for the relationship as Shauna.

They see Jackie as a mirror of themselves, so admitting that Jackie was more obsessed than Shauna feels like an insult, especially when Shauna had betrayed Jackie, so they lie and attempt to make Shauna look like a pathetic loser to uplift Jackie and remind Shauna of her place. Which shows how much they missed the point of the entire relationship.

They quite literally behave exactly like Jackie, when the show is telling them that Jackie is an unreliable narrator, and it shows in how they treat all of Shauna’s other relationships, especially her relationship with Melissa

First, answer me this, how often do you see a comment like this?

“Shauna doesn’t care about Melissa”

Or these?

Jackie is the reason Shauna became evil”

“Shauna only loves (Callie, Melissa, Lottie, or any other character) because they remind her of Jackie”

“Jackie is the only person Shauna ever loved”

“Jackie is the only person Shauna ever cared about hurting”

“Jackie is the only person Shauna is capable of loving”

I have seen all of these, and they drive me crazy. They are my biggest pet peeve, because it just shows how little you understand Shauna as a character and the show as a whole.

They see Melissa, and any other character around Shauna as competitors Jackie needs to eliminate. They hate the idea of Melissa being around Shauna. Which is probably the reason why they were throwing a fit over Melissa being a main character in season 4.

Jackie is the only person allowed to be with Shauna! No one else! Anyone else Shauna might like is simply a replacement! Her relationships with the others are simplified and disregarded as less than or unimportant compared to Jackie.

After all no one, no one could possibly compare to Jackie!

Melissa’s existence and her audacity to insult Jackie, and kiss Shauna set her up for many angry fans, who cannot help but act exactly like her.

As for the others, their relationships with Shauna are simply treated as unimportant or less than, to make sure Jackie remains #1. They will refuse the idea of a Jackie-less reason for Shauna to like these characters, the idea of Shauna liking someone for reasons other than “imagining Jackie” are completely absurd.

Obviously Shauna loves Jackie! Jackie was her first friend, her first crush, she loved her and mourned her death intensely. Jackie will always be important to Shauna no matter what. But this obsession with Jackie being #1 in Shauna’s life sounds a lot like something that an insecure Jackie would say.

Shauna did love Melissa genuinely and mourned her fake death, she enjoyed having sex with her, she chased the scientists to get revenge when they hurt her, she spared her life after she attempted to kill her.

Shauna did love most of the others as well, just as deeply. Shauna saw Javi as a little brother and was torn apart when she had to butcher him, and she kept his hat. Shauna puked in the script when she heard Travis died.

Shauna cared about Van enough to run into a burning plane. She cared about Tai and Van enough to run through the forest at night when Van was hurt. Shauna dreamed about Natalie being there for her after her childbirth and saved her life on multiple occasions, she mourned her death and took her loss hard.

Shauna had a dead wife montage of Lottie after her death and cried on her bed, Shauna loved her children so deeply that losing them (WB dying and Callie leaving her) was what drove her off the deep end in both timelines. Shauna visited WB grave more than Jackie’s bones.

I could even argue that she might have even had romantic feelings for some of the others (Lottie, Tai, Mari or Nat). Shauna spent season 3 letting Natalie, Lottie and Mari live in her head rent free and had a private phone to call Tai as an adult.

I don’t understand why I need to explain this to this fandom, but it doesn’t matter what number position Jackie is in because Shauna loves her regardless and always will!

(And let’s be so fr rn, WB and Callie are definitely #1 and #2)

It’s like saying a widow doesn’t love their new partner like their old one

Newsflash, Shauna can love more than one person at a time!

🤯

It’s okay that Jackie probably isn’t #1 and that’s okay and thinking that way is defeating the purpose of her character. Jackie was never going to be #1. Jackie spent her whole life trying and failing to be the best, she desperately tied her self concept to outside validation and failed to understand that self validation came from within.

So handing her Shauna, or the team’s validation isn’t going to fix it, it’s just going to make it worse. Jackie as a character is sanctified and twisted into an ideal, a guardian angel by the characters in the show itself, even Shauna, as they let their grief distort who Jackie really was

Jackie was flawed and human, she was an immature, self absorbed teenager, she was lazy and centered herself on someone else’s validation and eventually fell apart. She was possessive and easily jealous. She was not without sin (Doomcoming), and would shut everyone out when they needed her. She wasn’t even the best soccer player on the team.

But she wasn’t a malicious bully, or an evil villain. She was kind to others, and genuinely looked up to the others on the team and had genuine respect for them. She loved Van’s smile and Laura Lee’s faith, she did care about winning nationals and worked hard to get her position in soccer. She did Misty’s makeup, brought Shauna Valium for the flight, and even attempted to sacrifice herself for Van. She died wanting nothing more than to be loved, but the only way she would be loved was as an ideal.

She would be remembered in the one way she never wanted to be, in front of the highschool she feared she would never outgrow

I feel like whitewashing her of her flaws causes us to fall into the same trap that the characters in the show do. Jackie is not above the others, she is one of them.

Jackie knowingly planned to send Shauna, who was 5 months pregnant outside to sleep before Shauna refused to go. Why would she change her mind and bring her back inside? 💀

Jackie can be a petty, vindictive bitch when she wanted to, you know. Where do you think Shauna learned to talk shit?

I still find it funny how everyone misinterpreted the fight anyways. It’s like a Mandela effect.

“Shauna killed Jackie! 🤬”

meanwhile, Jackie picked her stuff up and left, while Tai was telling her not to go.

It literally went like this

Jackie: “Go outside and sleep there, I can’t even look at you!”

Shauna: “No I’m not gonna do that actually, sounds like a you problem”

Jackie: “Ok then I’m going outside!”

Tai: “Don’t do that Jackie”

Jackie: “Fuck you Tai! This is what you wanted all along”

Exits dramatically

Jackie could have come back inside, nobody locked the door, she chose to stay outside because she wanted to die, and she wanted Shauna specifically to be the one to catch her before that happened

I promise you, the only person she would’ve listened to was Shauna

And this isn’t the first time Shauna had to keep Jackie from wasting away.

Shauna has been doing this for a long time, it definitely got worse in the wilderness, but Shauna has definitely been Jackie’s emotional support crutch for a long time, given this

By the time Jackie dies, she has become more of someone Shauna needs to watch over and baby, than a friend and an equal Shauna can confide in, and that leads to emotional burnout

This is a sort of prelude to a longer, more serious post coming up soon that might feel slightly controversial, given that it is sort of Jackie critical and gives an unpopular take on Shauna’s grief of Jackie that might upset the “Jackie Taylor is better/less toxic/deserves better than evil Shauna crowd”

I feel like you’re forgetting the primary motivation here, you know, the fact that she was starving?

“Everyone else committed cannibalism because they were hungry, but Shauna was just evil and doing it for fun” 🤡🤡

Sorry, I missed the part where Shauna was having a DoorDash delivery sent to the meatshed while everyone else was starving

It was less about Jackie and more about the fact that there was no food and that she was pregnant and starving

I promise you, even if that corpse wasn’t Jackie she still would’ve taken a bite out of it too

The “She enjoyed eating humans more than anyone else” narrative is completely false as well, like she was the only one digging into fried Jackie

Or the only one screaming while eating Coach Ben

“Shauna loves eating people, no one else wants to eat people as much as Shauna does 🤡”

meanwhile, Mari, Gen, Melissa and Akilah came up with a plan to kill and eat her

Tai and Van masterminded the card draw to choose someone to eat and the others agreed

The others watched Javi drown because they wanted to eat him, you know because they were hungry

Gen and Melissa talked about eating crystals corpse when they found her

Tai ate Van’s heart after her death

Funny how it’s starvation and survival when it’s anyone else, but it’s a sign of evil or anything but hunger when it’s Shauna 🧐

Hi!

Sorry it took me so long to respond!

To answer your question, no I don’t think they would’ve worked out, for multiple reasons, but the most obvious one is that Shauna was a senior and was graduating in less a month or so, and Melissa was a sophomore or a junior.

The two of them most likely had never really interacted beforehand, so chances are, a relationship would probably have never happened

There are other reasons such as Melissa already admitting that the Shauna who was Jackie’s sidekick wasn’t her type as well

Let me explain

In episode six and seven Shauna edges Adam through text, but fails to show up because she is busy trying to find the blackmailer and by the time she returns home, he is outside of her house, waiting for her

Keep in mind, it is around 4 o clock in the morning and he is standing out in the open for everyone to see. He has not been invited into the house, nor did she ask him to come.

Hell I don’t even know if she gave him her address or if he found it on his own somehow.

He is fully aware that the neighbors or Shauna’s husband and daughter might see him. This is important because it sets up and influences the encounter they have

He is aware that Shauna is married and that this relationship is a secret, he also knows that Shauna is going to suffer the consequences for the both of them if they get caught (divorce lawyers cost money).

He is using this to solidify full control over the situation. She can’t yell without waking the neighbors or her family. He stands to lose nothing by getting caught, but he has everything to gain. While Shauna stands to lose everything by being caught

While, obviously Shauna did get into this relationship of her own accord, it still does not justify him showing up to her house. She has the right to her privacy and to give and take consent whenever she wants

Just because she wanted sex earlier doesn’t mean that she is obligated to have sex whenever he wants

Shauna tells him to leave immediately and he refuses to listen

She makes it clear she does not want to have sex, or to talk about anything right now. When someone tells you to get off their property and go home, you go home.

If Adam cared about having Shauna’s consent at all, he would’ve apologized, and then left. But he doesn’t, he immediately starts accusing her of leading him on, knowing full well he was the one who agreed to “going with the flow”

He’s clearly trying to create a narrative here, to present himself as the innocent lover boy entranced by a seductress who strings him along.

He is also attempting to guilt Shauna into feeling bad about not prioritizing him over everyone else. This behavior was already seen in the way that he attempts to involve himself with Callie at the party. Or his attempts to get Shauna to spill her secrets over golf.

Shauna choosing to have sex with him over her husband definitely stroked his ego, and he definitely wants her to keep doing it

But when he is reminded that she has other priorities (like Callie) he immediately feels insecure upon the reminder that she is married to another man and had a child with him. A child she will prioritize over him.

Shauna refuses once again and reads him to filth, and when she does he retaliates by physically assaulting her

“She moves more forcefully to the house. He grabs her”

He immediately escalates to physical violence and intimidation when his ego is damaged. This pretty much proves my point. He has no interest in actually having a conversation, or respecting her boundaries. He wants sex, and he is going to get it, no matter what

Everyone knows that a man who hits walls, will hit you next, and the fact that after less than a couple of weeks of casual sex, he is already comfortable with physical intimidation the first time she insults him and hits the mark, what do you think he would’ve done if they were together longer?

And this is also important to note, I think the reason a lot of fans, myself included, kind of overlooked this at first is probably because we know that Shauna could beat him. We subconsciously overlook this because we don’t associate Shauna with weakness.

That’s kind of an issue with real life people as well, which is why many people (usually men) have a harder time being believed when they admit to being assaulted

We see Shauna, the antler queen, and are more worried about what she would do to him, than what he is capable of doing to her.

If Jackie was in Shauna’s place, people would’ve taken this a lot more seriously

Also, we know Shauna is capable of fighting, Adam doesn’t. He isn’t manhandling the antler queen, he’s manhandling a defenseless woman he believes he can easily frighten, someone he believes he can manipulate or scare into submission.

I mean, the Shauna he has been dating has been pretty vulnerable around him, this was the same Shauna who was afraid of accidentally choking him to death during sex.

“Nice try”

I don’t know about you guys, but that sounds sadistic as hell 🤷‍♀️ Maybe that’s just me.

I don’t know what she was trying to do other than go inside her own home. He’s trying to discredit her argument by shoving her issues in her face to make himself look better by comparison.

And his mention of her wanting her daughter and husband to see is also a projection of his own insecurities as well.

The last date they had was interrupted by Callie, and he was put on the backburner because of that. This is probably part of the reason he showed up to her house in the first place, he wants to prove to himself that he is more important to Shauna than her daughter is

He also wants Callie to see this as well, given the last time he was with her, he tried to play dad

Shauna shoved him off, and that made him feel like a second choice, and now, he’s attempting to salvage his ego by showing up to Shauna’s house to assert dominance

He looks down on her role as a mom as a way to prove to himself and to her, that he is what she wants, and what she needs.

“A suburban wife and mother? C’mon, every cell in your body is dying to blow things up to see what happens. It’s who you are—”

People take this scene as him “clocking her”, like that justifies this at all. He’s once again, shoving the blame for his actions down her throat, and intimidating her to punish her for insulting him

He might be somewhat correct, but that doesn’t matter when he is using that as a weapon to justify forcing his desires on her.

And also, he knows that she is a victim of a plane crash that killed her best friend and many others, he knows the rumors circulating about what they ate.

He knows about the worst time of her life and she doesn’t even know if his name is real. And I’m supposed to believe she has the power here.

Shauna once again, tells him to leave her alone and he, once again, guilts and insults her instead of giving up and going home.

This kind of situation is the nightmare of every woman

“If you wanted me to do that, you wouldn’t have texted me”

Basically translates to: “If you wanted me to treat you with basic human dignity, you wouldn’t have refused to give me what I’m entitled to. You wanted to be treated this way, and any discomfort or fear you feel right now is the consequence of crossing me. You did this to yourself”.

This script could’ve been copy pasted of off r/incels.

He pretty much takes all blame, and once again, shoves it on Shauna’s shoulders, pretty much implying that this entire situation is her fault, that she should’ve known better, and that she could fix it by giving him what he wanted, and that all of this would be over

Remind you of something?

cough-cough-rape apologia-cough-cough

He emphasized his pain, “I was on the floor for hours, even though I knew you wouldn’t come”

Making himself look like the wronged party, and using manipulative rhetoric to empathize Shauna’s role, putting her in the position of power

“Waiting for you to take control”

He puts words in Shauna’s mouth, and acts as though he knows what Shauna wants, that this is something she wants and not him.

Shauna might have issues, I completely agree, and yes, there is truth to what he says, but that doesn’t matter. When someone says no, they said no, it doesn’t matter what they “secretly” want. You leave, immediately.

Justifying emotional manipulation and gaslighting by using Shauna’s mental illness and trauma against her is victim blaming rhetoric, that Adam is knowingly exploiting to get into her pants.

Shauna didn’t want to sleep with him, he manipulated her into believing she did, he put words into her mouth and convinced her they were the truth. He cornered her in front of her own house, knowing she could not yell for help without ruining her life.

He ends it by, once again, by offering her false vulnerability

“I know you want to know them” referring to his thoughts

He is exploiting her desire to be wanted, to be desired and loved. He knows that she feels undesirable, he knows her husband cheated on her, he knows her best friend is dead. He knows she got married at 22, and has no other friends outside of the other survivors.

He finally gets what he wants, but it is not truly consensual whatsoever

For sex to be consensual, consent needs to be given freely and enthusiastically. He violated her boundaries by showing up to her house in the middle of the night with full plans to have sex, whether or not she wanted sex, refused to listen to any of her refusals, cornered her in the open where she could not be loud for fear of ruining her life, guilts, gaslights, insults, physically manhandles and intimidates her until she gives in, after being gaslit into believing that she wronged him and owed him sex.

It’s very obviously implied, based on the context of the situation, that he had no intention of leaving without getting sex, that he had no qualms about physically forcing himself on her either, nor was he going to listen to anything that wasn’t yes.

Shauna’s wants and needs mean nothing to him, her feelings and autonomy are nonexistent, all that matters is what he wants

SA and rape are primarily about rooted in multiple factors, which are seen in the situation between Shauna and Adam

Power, Control, and Hostility: For many perpetrators, sexual violence is used to assert dominance, compensate for underlying feelings of inadequacy, or intimidate the victim. It is frequently utilized as a weapon to humiliate and intimidate. At the individual level, sexual assault is most often a weapon of power. Perpetrators use violence, intimidation, or coercion to assert dominance over another person. Rather than being a purely sexual act, it is an expression of hostility and a way to strip the victim of their autonomy.

Beliefs of Entitlement and Superiority: Sexual violence is often perpetuated by socialized beliefs, such as male superiority, sexual entitlement, and strict, aggressive gender roles. When individuals internalize the idea that their desires take precedence over the boundaries and consent of others, it paves the way for sexual coercion or assault. Many perpetrators might hold deeply ingrained thinking errors or misperceptions of sexual intent. They may view their actions as acceptable, minimize the harm caused, or blame the victim to justify their behavior.

Adam wants to exert power over Shauna and humiliate her after she ignored him, he wanted to make sure she couldn’t ignore him, and purposefully created a situation where he could exert the most amount of control (cornering her outside of her house), he insults and belittles her, using her housewife status to look down upon and humiliate her. He definitely reeks of male entitlement and it shows when he feels threatened by her husband and child, and attempts to insert himself as the most important person in her life, and feels entitled to be prioritized over her own child, and started a pissing contest with a seventeen year old over her attention.

He also percieves Shauna as vulnerable, as I already mentioned, he knows that her husband is cheating on her, she has no friends or other family and for all he knows, the only people she was ever close to have cut contact with her.

He started this relationship after approaching her and right after finding out she was cheated on, he knows that this relationship will come with consequences for her and not him, and knowingly exploits that advantage to exert control over her and force himself on her.

This is clearly SA, and rape, even if Shauna believes otherwise. This entire situation was built on dominating and exerting control over Shauna, punishing her for her failure to prioritize him, for daring to not center him as he has done for her. He believed that because he had had sex with her, that he was entitled to her body, her full attention and her secrets.

Shauna, who has been starved of affection for decades, and who had already had her boundaries violated by the only other people she had been close to in the past, would mistake this for affection. That doesn’t make it true.

Shauna had already been carrying blame for things that were not entirely her fault for the last two decades, so she was already primed by habit to agree with his insults, because everyone in her life, from the other Yellowjackets to Jackie’s mother, had already made her out to be the cause of all her problems, so it wouldn’t be hard for her to believe she caused him pain as well, and owed him sex.

And to make things worse, he planned to drag her out to a cabin in the middle of nowhere before he died. 😬

Also, I found an interesting thing in the scripts that they cut from the episode

It’s interesting that they cut it, probably so as not to make him look too bad, you know, cause Shauna was supposed to kill him

And then their conversation through text as well

The script implies that he might have purposefully dropped it, hoping that it would be found by someone, either Callie or Jeff.

It isn’t entirely crazy to believe, given his possessive tendencies when it came to Shauna and his jealousy towards her husband and daughter and his lack of fear at being caught.

Based on what I’ve gleaned, this relationship was never going to end non violently, because if this is how he reacts after less than a month and over such a small thing, imagine what he would’ve done when Shauna broke up with him

(I say when because let’s be for real, she was going to dump him eventually)

And mind you, he clearly left her paranoid long before she realized her journals were missing and before she believed he was the blackmailer

Mind you, he already had a Shauna shrine after less than a month

he clearly left her paranoid long before she realized her journals were missing and before she believed he was the blackmailer

Yeah, this was definitely going to end in violence, and hell, when you think about it, it isn’t crazy to believe that Shauna was genuinely in fear for her life when she killed him, when less than a week ago, hell I’m pretty sure it was less than two days, he physically assaulted her with barely any provocation.

I feel like I need to make sure everyone knows this, but I do not stand the erasure of his character or putting down his trauma (especially from Doomcoming) because it makes some fans uncomfortable, nor does ignoring that all the girls have abused, or aided in abusing him as well (including Natalie and Jackie and Taivan)

I really hate the way that some people lump him in with Jeff or Adam, despite how interesting his character

I always liked how his character is crafted with tropes usually associated with women, such as being the dead wife that Natalie grieves and avenges, or how he is forced to play the more quiet, more feminine and passive role as he spends more time in the wilderness

How his attempts to be the man in season one were probably born from being bullied pre-crash by the white more masculine crowd in his highschool. Or how his anger towards the other girls might be fueled by jealousy regarding how his father must have raved about them while looking down on him.

Or even his anger towards Javi coming from the fact that his dad seemed to like Javi more than him

Or how he grows his hair out in the wilderness but keeps it short for the rest of his life

This is exactly what I mean when I say people don’t actually care to understand Shauna sometimes because wdym she doesn’t care much about Nat?

With that logic you could also argue that Natalie didn’t care about Shauna either

And this is a crazy statement when in canon:

Shauna is the first and most likely the only person who defended her against the slut allegations “Don’t talk to her that way!”

She told Jackie not to sleep with Travis because she would hurt Natalie

While in her third trimester, she helped to bring Natalie back from the lake and warm her up, keeping her from freezing to death

When she was told to kill Natalie she cried and started shaking. Before she killed her, she put Jackie’s necklace, one of the most precious possessions she owned, around her neck in a way that paralleled her comforting Jackie, giving her a final, I love you and I’m sorry

When she was about to chop up Javi, she told Natalie to leave so she wouldn’t have to witness it

When Natalie was crowned, Shauna put aside her pride to bow to her, when the cabin caught fire, Shauna went straight to Natalie, saving her life a second time

Shauna allowed Natalie to keep the necklace in spite of how much it meant to her

When Natalie was supposed to cut up Coach Ben, Shauna covered his face and gave her genuine advice on how to do it properly

In the adult timeline, Shauna empathizes with Natalie’s grief for Travis and manages to get through to her

When Natalie admits to attempting suicide at Lottie’s cult, she is the first one who is shown to react

When Natalie dies, Shauna is so devastated she hugs Jeff of all people and cries in front of her daughter

On the day of Natalie’s funeral, Shauna smokes from her daughters weed stash and starts waxing poetic about how brave Natalie was at her funeral and depresses everyone

Like, yes Shauna saw Jackie as a villain who was ruining her life— when Jackie was alive

Not after she died. When Shauna sees ghost Jackie for the first times immediately post-mortem, Jackie is happy and fine with playing games in the meat shed. She gossips with Shauna and they laugh together

Jackie being mean happens after Shauna has done bad things, like eating her ear (“What did you do with my ear Shipman”), or when she is actively hunting down Coach Ben. Ghost Jackie grows meaner as Shauna becomes worse. And subconsciously believes that she deserves punishment.

Ghost Jackie is her subconscious, and the manifestation of her guilty conscience

By the time she returns home, Jackie is immortalized by her parents and Wiskayok as a whole, which messes with Shauna’s perception of Jackie in a different way

Jackie isn’t the big bad villain, she’s Shauna’s victim, Shauna’s the monster who brutally killed her and ate her remains after betraying her in the worst ways possible

Shauna’s psyche doesn’t revolve around Jackie being the bad guy anymore, she is the monster now, and she internalizes that belief in order to cope with her trauma

I mean

Or Shauna telling Callie that she thinks of Jackie every day. Or her insistence on showing up to Jackie’s house on her birthday to be ripped to shreds. It’s evident that Shauna does not view Jackie as a villain who ruined her life anymore

It doesn’t fit with the way she acts in these moments

It’s easy for Shauna to see Jackie as a virtuous victim of her monstrous behavior, especially when Shauna has Jackie’s innocence and angelic persona rubbed in her face everywhere she goes, from the statue to the ceramic bunnies, to Jackie’s parents and their surface level knowledge of her daughter over the course of two decades.

That will change your perspective and it requires the way that Shauna views Jackie and the way she views her in adulthood

God bless their innocent souls, they are so convinced that Natalie is pure of soul and heart, unlike the other evil girls (you know who), they are not going to like watching season 4

It’s everywhere in this fandom, especially in TikTok comment sections where they infantilize the other Yellowjackets and say things like

“How can they possibly hang around Shauna after everything!”

It gets even worse when they start trying to prove that the characters in the show (especially their faves) actually despise evil, wicked witch Shauna, when in reality they all wanna make out with her

Like, Jackie in canon fell apart the moment Shauna rejected her. She acted like a pick me every time Shauna was within her line of sight 😂. She was stealing Valium from her mom for Shauna, she was throwing a fit every time Shauna wasn’t paying attention to her. Hell, even in her dying moments, she was hallucinating Shauna cradling her face and telling her she loved her.

Tai was running through the forest for Shauna, and offered to give her an abortion and father her baby. She chopped her hair and marched into the forest for Shauna. She marched through a blizzard for Shauna. She went to Shauna when she became aware of her sleepwalking in both timelines

Natalie was keeping count of Shauna’s pregnancy, and called Coach Ben when Misty fell apart. She held Shauna’s hands while she was giving birth. She let out a sigh of relief when Shauna wasn’t picked in their first hunt. Her final request to Shauna was to look into her eyes one final time. She went out of her way to spend time with Shauna in season 3. Shauna manages to get to Natalie where Tai and Misty fail, Natalie hugs Shauna when she sees her again in season 2

Misty canonically referred to Shauna as “one of the incredible women I owe my life too” and was the one to deliver Shauna’s baby. She sought out Shauna after Natalie’s death and only grew angry after Shauna repeatedly rejected her.

Travis chopped his hand open for Shauna during her birth after she assaulted him. Lottie was desperately attempting to father Shauna’s baby. Lottie came to Shauna after she was released even though she could’ve went anywhere else. She dressed her up as a wilderness bride for the love of God!

Van ran into a house full of toxic gas for Shauna, Javi followed Shauna around like a lost puppy, and looked for her specifically when drugged, Coach Ben gave Shauna a personal apology for abandoning her during childbirth. Melissa followed Shauna around and made out with her after Shauna threatened her life, and was so desperate to see her again she bought a new hat and sent evidence of murder to her doorstep.

Laura Lee flew an old ass plane partially to get her help. Coach Martinez fell out of the plane while putting an oxygen mask on her. Mari folded within seconds and gave up Coach Ben’s location the moment Shauna pulled out her season one voice. Akilah spent an afternoon making Shauna a crown

Mind you, they held hands and started chopping hair and praying to trees the moment she started bleeding the wrong way

Like, yeah they might scapegoat her and screw her over a lot, but they do not hate her they way you do.

And it’s really pathetic how hard you try to make your faves look cool by swearing on your life that they hate evil Shauna and would never willingly spend time with her.

I mean, everyone seems to notice that Tai is usually the one doing the comforting and not Shauna and seem to see it as a failure entirely on Shauna’s shoulders. On one hand, Shauna definitely could’ve done more, but I feel like we forget something somewhat important

Tai herself and her thoughts on Shauna, and how she wants to be comforted.

In canon, Tai is a character who likes having control and usually likes to play the “wise, older sister” figure. This role is seen in her interactions with Natalie, Misty, Akilah and even Travis and Lottie

This helps her to maintain relationships in which she won’t be questioned by the other about her mental state

It’s easier to deny the “you need help” allegations when you’re the one doing the helping, when the person you are with is below you in status or in income, this is seen especially with Natalie

It’s not that Natalie cannot shake Tai and get through to her, it’s that her history of crimes and addiction that Tai usually saves her from keeps her firmly in the little sister role, in spite of her annoyance towards that role.

It’s also probably Tai’s way of keeping out of someone’s debt, as that is also something she hates

Tai is also someone who desperately wants to maintain the mask of normal, so playing the role of big sister is also Tai’s way of maintaining control

Also, she has a really big heart and that counts too

But the exception to that rule is Van and Shauna, who both comfort Tai and can see through her and shake the balance of that relationship

Natalie tries to do that, but the trouble she gets in makes it really hard to do that

But Shauna is technically Tai’s equal in every way, she gets the same grades, plays in a similar position to her, and is the only one to call her out when she messes up with Allie.

Hear me out, I was thinking about Taivanshauna and the Van and Shauna parallels of it all (I’ll get into that one day), and I realized something.

Both Van and Shauna represent something entirely opposite to Tai

Again, you need to listen to me. Van represents fantasy to Tai. This is not to dunk on their relationship whatsoever, I love them okay, But it is interesting to think about when you actually look at it.

They have a secret relationship to start with, and sneak around Romeo and Juliet style, Van and Tai run off and have sex while the others are hunting Travis and attempting to murder him, Van convinces Tai that other Tai is some sort of wilderness superpower while at the height of her wilderness mania, and she encourages Tai to let out other Tai when she has to kill Coach Ben

Shauna, on the other hand, represents reality, and the way she interacts with her represents how she views that reality

Shauna is a character who, for the most part has been affected the worst by the wilderness and seems to accept reality and reject the wilderness and the bullshit stories they told

From the beginning of the story, in the pilot, it is Shauna who calls Tai out for breaking Allie’s leg while everyone else was willing to let the issue go unquestioned.

Shauna questions Tai and holds her accountable for breaking Allies leg. Van attempts to calm Shauna down, but Shauna refuses to let it go. Tai attempts to discredit Shauna’s insults by pointing out her drunken state. She does the same with Natalie as well

Shauna calls her out on that again, refusing to let her off the spot, until Jackie diffuses the situation, and Shauna gives in for the sake of group peace, but she has managed to shake Tai off her high horse

Shauna is Tai’s equal and someone she respects, kind of like Jackie, but unlike Jackie, Shauna gets to know Tai more personally by choosing to follow her into the attic when nobody else does, crossing the red tape.

Tai had fully expected to be alone, Shauna coming was unexpected and kind of messed with the dynamic, so she attempts to fix it by immediately mentioning Shauna’s pregnancy, probably to even the playing field

Her relationship with Shauna is at it’s tightest when Tai is acknowledging reality and attempting to be clearheaded and before other Tai becomes more prominent in her life

Taking care of Shauna grounds her to reality and keeps her feeling useful and in control, and also because she loves Shauna. And the reality does start to seep into fantasy time with Van as well, as she worries about Shauna’s health

After Tai listens to Shauna break down about dying, she immediately forgoes all fantasy and decides to go out and find help. She lets go of the fantasy of being rescued soon and sets a match to the false sense of security the others were enveloped in

Throughout the trip, Tai does attempt to keep the others from believing Lottie’s stories and eventually, other Tai surfaces and Van is hurt.

When they are rescued, Shauna reaches them first, (interesting detail I noticed when I watched the episode) and Tai, afraid of losing grip with reality, looks for comfort in Shauna, and opens up and is entirely vulnerable in that moment.

Shauna promises to stay with her, but things get worse with time. After Doomcoming and Jackie’s death, Shauna loses touch with reality and starts speaking to corpses, leaving Tai alone. This is probably one of the only times Shauna is untethered from reality

Tai probably assumes it’s grief at first and leans on Van, being able to take comfort in Van being less serious and more affectionate than Shauna, but even then, she seems to be leaning more towards fantasy now than reality. She isn’t a fan of Lottie’s circles, but she is definitely a lot less fixed on reality than in season one

After she realizes that Shauna is putting makeup on Jackie’s corpse, she immediately loses her shit. She was shaken to her core, and rightly so, but this also has a bit more to it than the obvious “people don’t put makeup on corpses or braid their hair”

Shauna is her only tether to reality and her losing her mind terrifies Tai, because if Shauna is losing her mind, then what would happen to her?

She can’t have that. She’s going to shake Shauna out of this, no matter what, and that meant getting rid of that body asap. Even if it meant they had to burn it.

Only for that decision to end up being the reason she ends up committing cannibalism, and with that, she finally accepts the invitation to the prayer circle, to get rid of the other Tai, who she blames for the cannibalism. And in doing so, she distances herself from Shauna.

That does come to a head the day of Shauna’s birth. It always felt weird how defensive Tai was about being unapologetic about Lottie helping her, as though she was afraid that Shauna would burst the bubble she created. Shauna is someone with the strength to burst Tai’s bubble

According to the actress, Shauna is someone Tai was willing to put aside all her pride for, Shauna is someone Tai was willing to chop her hair for, to march into the middle of nowhere for.

If anyone could shake Tai, it was Shauna, and being defensive and treating Shauna like she was overreacting is Tai’s way of attempting to take control of the relationship dynamic, like she did during the pilot (“Someone needs to take her wasted ass home”)

Kind of like how she insults Natalie every time she gets to her (“You smell like a wino” or “Don’t you have a bong to hit or a dick to suck?”)

When they are lost in the blizzard and Tai is afraid they will die, she willingly prays to the wilderness to save them. When they are safe though, she attempts to keep Lottie from starting up the wilderness worship, telling her not to do that right now

But the moment that Shauna collapses, and Tai believes that she might be dead, she immediately starts praying again. Shauna is her tether to reality, and I think that she believes if Shauna is lost, then so is she.

And when Shauna is close to dying, she will immediately give in to bullshit prayers and fantasies to bring her back, to take control.

Even if she knows that prayers didn’t bring Shauna back, over time it’s grown much easier to give in and believe in that fantasy than it was when she first landed.

Especially thanks to the power of peer pressure and the wise philosophy of “happy wife, happy life”

Afterwards, as Shauna falls apart and Javi is eaten and the cabin burns, Tai gives in entirely to fantasy and Van. It makes sense of course, because even if Van does encourage Tai to believe in the Wilderness, Van is capable of comforting and loving Tai in a way that Shauna is incapable of.

Which makes it a lot easier to choose Van over Shauna. It’s interesting as Van and Shauna are on opposite sides at the beginning of season 3. Shauna is the outsider who refuses to believe their stories and is a thorn in the ass.

Van is beloved by the group and the storyteller who tells tall tales and makes the group laugh and feel like they’re normal teenagers again

Shauna reminds everyone of who they are now, Van reminds them of who they used to be.

It’s an easy choice for Tai to choose the person who makes her feel happy and loved over the person who is constantly miserable and bitter. And obviously, Tai does care and I do think she does feel bad, but it’s just so much easier to be told everything is okay than to hang around Shauna and end up feeling depressed.

But when Coach Ben is found, Tai and Shauna finally find common ground again and work together to bring him down. But when she has to kill him, she immediately goes to Van to have sex and find a way to remove her own agency to make it easier

Other Tai, who Tai has rejected, is now someone Tai willingly calls on to do the job for her. Van, unlike Shauna does not have experience in doing the hard job, does have experience in other Tai, though and can make her feel better about the whole thing.

Afterwards, when the scientists arrive, reality finally hits to Tai. The fact that home still exists and if they are to return to it, they have to be careful about it. And it’s interesting to note that Shauna is the first person to acknowledge that.

These are things that Tai mentions when talking to Van

What are people going to think when we go home?

What are they going to think of us?

How are we going to get away with all of these crimes we’ve committed?

These are all concerns Tai carries into adulthood, and the fact that Shauna says them out loud first does prove my theory correct. Shauna’s questions wake Tai up to reality once again, like she did back during the abortion attempt.

Shauna puts down her bags after Lottie does, but Tai chooses to stay home after Shauna does.

She attempts to take control of the situation and when attempting to fool the others, she works with Van, attempting to do for Van what Van has done for her, soften the blow and create a fantasy. “It’s not murder if it’s Hannah”. But it’s clearly not working in the way it used to. Van no longer wants to live in a fantasy, and Shauna sees right through Tai.

Shauna is the one to confront Tai about messing with the cards, and Tai immediately shuts her out, most likely shifting to other Tai in order to keep up her fantasy

She dresses Shauna up as the antler queen as well, paralleling adult Tai villainizing Shauna to discredit her, or how she discredited Natalie every time she got to her.

If Shauna was crazy and evil, then she was no longer Tai’s equal and that meant that Shauna could not shake her or make her feel vulnerable anymore.

As an adult though, she seems to have more of a relationship with Shauna than she has with Van, given the fact that Shauna has a burner phone she uses to call Tai.

Tai’s breakup with Van and marriage to Simone was her way of chopping out the fantasy that was the wilderness.

Unlike Shauna and Melissa who marry reminders of the wilderness out of guilt, Van who lives in a video store and lives in the 90’s as a reminder of the childhood she had before the wilderness, Natalie and Travis who stay together, doing drugs and aimlessly wandering around their lives and causing chaos, or Lottie who never lets go of the wilderness religion, Tai marries someone with no connection to the wilderness, and has a career that outshines her time in the wilderness.

According to Tai, her sleepwalking stopped for a while, most likely not as much as she thought, given Sammy’s experience with “the bad one” at least to Tai, she was normal and refuses to believe otherwise.

When she realizes someone is blackmailing her, she immediately calls Shauna, most likely for a solid plan on how to do this, which Shauna provides. Which is kind of interesting as the Shauna in the teen timeline does not seem like she’ll be giving rational advice anytime soon, hopefully they get into that in season 4

When she is confronted with the reality that she is sleepwalking, she goes to Shauna’s house, most likely for the same reasons that she had done so 25 years ago. To be shaken awake, to regain control of reality.

But when she goes too far and nearly kills her wife, she looks for Van this time, most likely for the comfort Van will provide her and the fantasy bubble that Van will provide her.

Van is definitely not in the interest of doing so, most likely scarred for life after the Mari thing, and no longer able to come up with stories like that anymore. But she does attempt to do so.

And Van is the one who suggests calling off the psych team while Shauna is the one who was trying to rationally diffuse the situation, once again Tai chooses Van and fantasy over reality

Tai does end up trying to forget her grief for Natalie and Lottie by immersing herself into other Tai and having fun with Van. But as adults, Van no longer wants to do this anymore and starts to question Tai, she burrows even deeper into other Tai

This probably shakes her vision of reality even more, as Van, the closest person to Tai, the only one who ever truly got to see all of Tai was no longer willing to provide a fantasy for Tai to stay in. This scares her, and she desperately attempts to keep Van alive at all costs, even if it means murdering innocent people to do so.

Van, on the other hand, comes to the conclusion that she could no longer cling on to false illusions or fantasies anymore and finally accepts death. Her final words to Tai are to wake up.

Van’s death shatters her illusions and forces her to finally accept reality. In fear of having to accept reality, she immediately attempts to discredit and vilify Shauna. If Shauna is crazy and evil, then she can’t shake Tai

Shauna is the only person alive who can make Tai question herself, the only person who knows Tai well enough to do so. Tai has fully embraced fantasy wilderness worship when Shauna nearly died in childbirth. So, maybe Tai believes that if she can get rid of Shauna, then she can get rid of reality altogether. If Shauna dies, so does the fear that somebody could make her feel vulnerable again, or force her to realize how far she has fallen

Simone cannot do that, as she does not know the truth about the wilderness or Tai. Misty cannot do that, as she is not close enough to do that, nor would she try to either. Melissa never knew Tai at all and she killed Van, the person Tai loved most.

Hi! Thanks for asking! I actually didn’t like shaunahat at first but they definitely grew on me by the end of the season

They are so awful for each other in a good way. Shauna the antler queen would not exist without Melissa.

I feel like both of them exploited and abused each other in different ways, I’ve talked about it in other posts

Shauna took out her grief and anger out on her, while Melissa used her to hide her own violent tendencies and toxic behaviors

I do believe that they both loved each other in spite of their issues. The relationship is interesting for me to dissect as someone who loves nuance

It’s also incredibly interesting that Melissa was the one who inadvertently created the wilderness baby religion, which is actually one of my favorite shaunahat tethers

I really hate it when their relationship is flattened to evil Shauna and baby Melissa, but don’t worry, I know Shauna abused Melissa and I don’t justify it either

I mean, Melissa did cause a lot of harm to Shauna’s psyche at one of the most vulnerable times of her life whether it was entirely intentional or not, and attempted to murder her and almost carried it out. She stalked her in adulthood and ragebaited her knowing that they had just been doing cult stuff at Lottie’s place and that Natalie died.

Melissa is a lot more interesting when you acknowledge her agency instead of entirely removing it to demonize Shauna

I also hate the jackieshauna 2.0 allegations, especially since Melissa is nothing like Jackie and Shauna and Melissa’s relationship was forged in completely different circumstances compared to jackie and Shauna and their relationship served a different purpose

I definitely don’t think their relationship would’ve worked without the specific circumstances they were in, but I find that makes it even more interesting

Melissa as a character has grown on me a lot lately, and I credit your posts (I’m a casual fan 😊). And I hope we get more on her.