#Yellowjackets theory

[svltburn]

all of the yellowjackets are going to die.

i've had different versions of this theory bouncing around in my head since mid s1, and if you've seen final destination, you can just skip the rest of the post because you probably already know where i'm going with this.

natalie's death scene was overall unsatisfying in my opinion, but that's not because i don't think that the show was leading up to it eventually. her character arc was rushed and cut off too abruptly, but after sitting with the episode for a bit, i do think that natalie was always going to be the first of the survivors we saw die.

"we both know that's not true. this is exactly where we belong. we've been here for years."

now it's notable that natalie is appearing as she did the night of the party in the pilot. the last night before the plane crash. not just her outfit, but her hair and make up are the same. see how much of her roots are grown out, vs how much they're grown out in the 96 timeline.

when that plane went down 600 miles off course, no one was supposed to survive. not a single person on that plane should have made it out. The Wilderness, the lonely, violent, misunderstood Wilderness kept them alive when they crashed into It. when they found cabin guy's plane back in s1, lottie looked at the vines growing around the wheels and said "It didn't want him to leave", and she was right. laura lee's trip ending in spontaneous combustion should have been enough to prove that if only they were paying attention by then.

they all should have died when that plane crashed. The Wilderness allowed them to survive, to make a home. albeit violently, tragically, It nurtured them through two winters, and ungratefully, they all left anyway. eventually they're all going to have to go home to It, one way or another, dead or alive. It's already been inside them for years.

[nerd-at-sea5]

yellowjackets season 3 predictions/theories?

- we find out who pit girl is (and it isn’t mari??)

- the jv’s get last names

- lottie gets out of the psych ward. my moneys on either van breaking her out or some unexplainable wilderness thing

- along with that either van’s cancer is cured due to nat’s sacrifice, or she’s the season finale big death

- lisa and callie get more involved with the wilderness against lottie and shauna’s wishes (also jeff does bc ofc he does)

- someone brutally murders pedo cop. idgaf who (shauna) but someone should kill that man

- lottienat moments during the time in the wilderness and maybe more parallels w taivan?

- hoping we get more precrash scenes

- lottie has a jackieshauna type situation w hallucinating teen!nat while in the psych ward (bounds points if laura lee is also there)

- i don’t think we’re going to get much more jackie scenes but a dude can hope

[samaraevanswriter]

Absolutely wild theory yellowjackets season 3

Travis and Shauna might hook up, causing hallucinated/ghost-Jackie return

They're both in mourning of people they've lost and that grief could connect them.

In season 3, they're back in spring/summer time and we know there's a return to season 1 dynamics:

Shauna was hooking up with Jackie's boyfriend (in an attempt to be closer to her)

Travis was a loner, not really a part of the group

"Hooking up in a blood stained death trap" where Jackie's bones are resting -> Jackie slept with Travis in Shauna's bed, Hauna could sleep with him nearby Jackie's remains to feel closer to her

Misty's obsession with Coach -> her S1 focus on Coach Scott could be paralleled with her S3 devotion for Nat, meaning Nat might spend less time with Travis now she's leading the group too

Teenage hormones -> there was a bunch of subtle moments with things like this in S1 especially compared to S2, and the thing we saw Travis grabbing from the burning cabin was literally a pack of condoms, so its safe to assume he'll probably use them at some point

We haven't seen yet if Travis holds any specific resentment against Shauna. We saw him talking with Van in the S2 finale but not the others. And it seems like he's forgiven Natalie from his actions in the Natalie coronation scene. So we don't really know how he'll feel individually about the girls moving forward. But we've already seen something similar in Travis and Shauna's friendship with forgiveness on Travis side -> Shauna tries to slit his throat in Autumn and then months later when she's about to die in childbirth, he uses the same knife to cut his hand as a sacrifice for her to live. There's so much love in Travis, bless him. (There was a really good post by someone going into depth about their friendship that mentioned the knife, not sure who made it but it was great).

We could return to Travis keeping to himself more after the events of S2 but not completely ostracising himself as he knows how dangerous it would be.

The fact that Nat is now in charge would protect him from the group and allow him some more freedom.

We know he and Natalie contemplate suicide at one point because of the pact they make in the future so Travis is definitely in a vulnerable place and Shauna could take advantage of that.

Shauna might also be an little bit of an outsider in S3 as she doesn't support Nat's lead.

Shauna's mad at and jealous of Natalie as she is the new antler queen instead of Shauna. Similar to how Shauna was jealous of Jackie in S1.

She could make a move on Travis in an attempt to simultaneously feel closer to Jackie and get back at Nat.

She's already done it once during doomcoming, she might do it again.

And if they did have sex, it would be the only way left for Shauna to feel close with Jackie. Potentially bringing back Ella.

And we know adult Shauna sees Jackie's 'ghost' but after the jackie-feast in 2x02, she doesn't see her again even when she reaches out. Maybe this is a way of bringing ghost-Jackie back into Shauna's life. A way to feel connected to her again and speak to her memory.

I would personally love to see Ella back as Ghost/hallucinated-Jackie on Shauna's part and I feel like this has the potential to make it happen.

And the best part about this theory (other than JackieShauna) is it opens up other romantic potential for Natalie too, AKA bring on Lottienat and Mistynat

I'll always find a way to circle back to these pairings lmao

[heartz4shauna]

jackieshauna theory time i think???

so we all know how jackie died, she stayed outside in the cold while starving, right? and you might think, “oh she didn’t come back into the cabin because she was stubborn and blah blah blah” you’re wrong actually!

here’s where the theory comes in, she didn’t come back into the cabin because she thought shauna didn’t love her anymore.

after the argument, she must’ve been thinking to herself “she’s the person i love the most in the world and she hates me. i’d do anything for her. i want to make her happy. i’ll stay outside.” and she died.

obviously, she thought wrong. but BY THEORY, she was so in love with shauna and the only thing she wanted to do was make shauna happy, she thought what would make shauna happy is her to just not be. to get rid of all of their arguments and quarrels and differences by just ceasing to exist.

their argument was obviously such a huge thing and they clearly hated each other in the moment, maybe shauna more so than jackie. she DID what shauna asked her to, she left the cabin. she did that, thinking it’d make shauna feel better, feel happy.

[invisible-pink-toast]

been thinking about what'll happen to coach ben and i've got some thoughts

[catastrophicgay]

Shauna’s fatal attraction to Jackie

A mess of an explanation I found in my notes app as to why Shauna's story arc has to end with her death:

The way I envision the nature of Jackie and Shauna’s relationship is the two of them being bound together. In every timeline they are intrinsically intertwined and always will be. After Jackie’s death, Shauna does everything she can to hold on to that physical connection, so much so that the yellowjackets have to physically drag her away from Jackie’s frozen corpse multiple times. When Shauna processes that they are going to take Jackie away from her, she reverts to cannibalism, realizing the only way she can prevent their ties from being severed is to physically consume her.

Now in the adult timeline, she’s haunted by visions of Jackie and the things that she did to keep her. She’s still subconsciously tied to Jackie and would never be able to break it, even if she truly did want to. She held on so desperately to Jackie in the wilderness that she’s solidified them in her mind, those ties are going nowhere. But their connection is insatiable. It simply existing isn’t enough, Shauna can’t just live her life haunted by Jackie. Their ties are dragging her back to Jackie, back to their bond, back to the wilderness. That’s why she goes back to the woods with Lottie, that’s why she openly admits to sabotaging all her own attempts to distance herself from what happened, that’s why she’s holding on to whatever suppression her mind will allow her.

Their binding is too strong, she couldn’t stop herself being dragged back if she tried. So Shauna clings on desperately to whatever in her normal life is somewhat stable enough to be something she can hold on to. But in doing so, she digs her claws into ever person she tries to grasp to keep herself in place; Adam, Callie, Jeff, etc. Adam died, Callie and Jeff are in serious danger of being put away. Shauna knows that whatever happens, she can’t avoid the way these knots she’s tied herself to Jackie with are as strong as ever.

This is why her story has to end with her death. All this destruction, haunting, and self sabotage all leads back to one connection with one person. That person is dead, but that doesn’t mean Shauna is incapable of joining her once more. Two objects bound together at constant tension until both objects are motionless (I nearly failed physics please don’t fact check this). So Shauna remains the girl who lived, but she lives restlessly and hopelessly searching for who she left behind in those woods. Both bodies need to be put to rest, she has to join Jackie.

[nestaenthusiast]

Okay so I have a theory that they will find out Misty broke the tracking device as adults and once they do they will pin the murder of Adam Martin on her. The bird Caligula was “named after a Roman emperor who was unjustly accused of heinous acts”. Like that’s literally in the show. So I think she is gonna be accused of the murders instead of Shauna

[bag-of-teeth]

anytime i rewatch yellowjackets i forget the pit girl scenes exist and then i remember and i have THOUGHTS

main thought this time: i don’t think the choice of costuming (the furs, the masks, the strange amalgamations of clothing different from what we see in any other episode) is ritualistic like they make it out to be. it’s out of necessity, because EVERYTHING THEY HAD GOT BURNED.

this kinda makes me wonder if it’s all less ritualistic than they make it seem. until the season 2 finale it’s kind of assumed that what they’re wearing in that scene is a ritualistic choice because they have all these other clothes and they’re CHOOSING to wear these furs and strange, uncanny masks.

because of the way the timelines are split and the way information is introduced by the writers, yj is constantly recontextualizing itself with every single nugget of information. the fire is part of that, and majorly changes what we know about the pit girl scene, something we have very little context for. really the only other bit of context we’ve gotten is more details about the rituals of the hunt and the significance of the necklace… everything else is pretty unexplained.

this may not be as coherent as i think but those are my thoughts. enjoy :3

[theswifterhood]

Yellowjackets Theory:

So we all saw in 2x3 when Shauna’s nose bled onto the symbol on the blanket, which then was ominously followed by a bunch of birds dying. Well, if you recall in season 1, Lottie says that they have to “spill blood.” I would refer to a nosebleed as a blood spillage. Especially since it was on the symbol. So, this leads me to believe a few things:

1. The girls will all start to view Lottie as their new leader, with Jackie (the voice of reason and the appointed team captain) dead and gone. Lottie will continue to say weird things in French (probably because they’re in Canada.), and they’ll all start following her. Lottie is the antler queen (wbk). Some of the girls/guys (like Natalie and Ben) will not be down to follow Lottie around like a cult leader.

2. Spilling blood = survival. If they spill blood, they will be granted in return something that can help them live, most likely food. This is why I think Javi is dead, Javi died (spilled blood) and they were rewarded by the spirits (I think they’re wendigos) with a healthy bear to eat.

3. So why didn’t they get a bear when Shauna bled on the blanket? Because it was a small amount of blood in comparison to someone literally dying. This leads me to the sacrifices/pit girl. I don’t know (nor do I really care) who pit girl is. If you ask me, she’s Mari. This is because of the appearance, and the dripping she keeps hearing (in the pilot we see the girl is bled out likely by Shauna). I think they are sacrificing the girls/guys going forward, not eating them though. I think Lottie will convince the girls the only way to survive is to appease the spirits, by spilling blood. They will then be rewarded with resources. The less blood you spill, the less valuable the reward.

4. This theory also explains why the girls won’t say what they did out there to survive. Like we know with the real life soccer team that crashed, people will not judge you if you eat other people to survive (or at least most people won’t)!! But if you sacrifice those people to some evil forest spirits… then they will.

So yeah. I love this show. I love any show that lets me go online and theorize, honestly. It’s why I loved PLL when it was on. It’s why I love Stranger Things and Yellowjackets now. Theorizing about things with a shared community of people who love it just as much as you do is really special!!! Buzz. 🐝

[lunalivvy]

everyone who finds the queen card dies, and i have a theory about it

we all made the connection that since javi was first to find the queen card that’s why he died instead of nat, but i don’t think that situation was specific to javi. it’s more like a cycle.

whoever holds the queen card is next in line to die, but i don’t think you’ll die until the next person pulls it. holding the card is almost like putting your death on hold until your time is up (think of it like a relay race, only as long as you’re holding the baton- the queen card- you’re fine, but as soon as it’s passed to someone else, that’s when your time is up and you die and the cycle continues)

and that means shauna’s going to die next.

at the beginning, the deck of cards was missing a queen until javi found it one day. time goes on and he somehow impossibly survives the winter all on his own, and that’s because his time wasn’t up yet… UNTIL, natalie pulls the card.

so now natalie is the new cardholder, she tries to khs but that get intervened, again- because her time isn’t up yet. but as soon as shauna pulls the card, natalie gets killed. it’s all a cycle and shauna is next.

((i think it’s also possible that callie takes her place, to do with that theory that pit girl actually takes place in the present instead of the past))

[nerd-at-sea5]

i am wholeheartedly a fan of the ‘pit girl is just a random hiker than got lost and then was like ‘yo humans! i’m safe’ and then everyone was like. ‘whelp at least we don’t have to kill another yellowjacket, hey random hiker *ghostface voice* wanna play a game?’ headcanon/theory/idea

like. good god the morality of it all is SO fucked but honestly? that’s what makes it good

[samaraevanswriter]

Will the yellowjackets eat someone in the spring/summer?

Its not super likely but totally possible

We know from cast interviews, season 3 is 'brutal', 'shocking', 'surprising', and 'emotional'

Will the animalistic, feral side to the girls remain when they are no longer starving? Or will that side of them stay in the shadows until the snow returns?

Its likely at least one person will die in the forest as they have in previous seasons, e.g. summer/autumn: the collective plane crash victims, Laura Lee, and Jackie. And then in winter: Crystal/Kristen, wilderness baby, and Javi. They could stick with this rule of three as means to narrowing down the large group of remaining girls down to the original 8 we see in the pit girl feast (or 9 if you count pit girl).

There are many ways someone could die in the wilderness. If someone's body is left with the survivors, will they bury them amongst the other graves? Or... will they eat them to keep them close and regain their strength?

Something implied but yet to be totally confirmed in yellowjackets is that its 'ritualistic cannibalism' rather than 'survival cannibalism'. And the only way to confirm this for sure would be them eating someone when they do have a choice.

If someone were to betray the group or Nat, their leader, they could face violence at the hands of the group.

Misty specifically I feel like could kill someone in protection of Nat in season 3. It seems like no one (except maybe Shauna and Ben) is a threat to Nat currently, so its less likely.

Ben doesn't seem like he'd hurt Natalie, but if he did set the cabin fire, it makes it more likely, especially now she has been leading the girls in survival.

We know Misty doesn't want Ben to die as she saved him from his suicide attempt in season 2 (even though they desperately needed food and she refused to let them eat Crystal/Kristen). However if he poses a threat to Nat, I don't think she'd think twice.

[heartz4shauna]

another jackieshauna theory guys argh

so we all know jackie, her death, her becoming cannibalised, the whole scandal. we hear both lottie and shauna say, before and after eating her, “it’s what she would’ve wanted.”

well, yes! in my last theory, i said she just wanted to make shauna happy. everyone was becoming emotional and just 😡🤬🤬😤😠😾👿 because they had no food, hangry if you will.

jackie left the cabin to make shauna happy, to stop their quarrels but ALSO to feed them. those were her intentions.

we see her “ghost” talking to shauna, “that’s not what you’re hungry for” basically encouraging her to eat her. obviously her ghost was just shauna’s imagination, but dreams, a lot of the time, reflect on real life. in s1e1, jackie is encouraging shauna to dance with her, i mean, she’s the captain, right? but she has such a huge person impact on shauna, obviously, they were best friends, so much so that shauna listened to her, even in death.

[invisible-pink-toast]

thinking about how mari is obsessed with heirarchy and making sure she's near the top

early season 1 when jackie is the captain, popular and stepping into a leader role, mari is always trying to get her attention.

trying to be helpful and close and always backing jackie up, wanting to be her no.2 (and stepping in the second there's tension between jackie and shauna)

but after they've been out there for a few weeks, things start to shift. there's no soccer team so jackie being captain doesn't matter. she's not stepping up as a leader because that involves living off the land and jackie has no clue what to do there. and the only popularity is within their group - and jackie not pulling her weight means she's no longer popular.

i don't think at this point mari singles out jackie to make an enemy out of her, they still have some friendly moments. but we all know mari's favourite thing is being a hater and that just comes out. she's treating jackie like they're equals - and in this situation, they now are.

besides, someone else is starting to step up as leader

and when tai leaves on her mission to find help, mari is in the small group that goes. it's worth mentioning that jackie also gave her support in the escape attempt. both leader-figures are in favour, so mari is too.

but tai's stint as leader doesn't exactly go as planned...

their group is attacked in the night when tai was supposed to be on watch. tai fell asleep, the fire went down, and "other tai" slept-walked her up a tree. and while when tai comes to she joins the fight (and kills a wolf with an axe damn), i think that would've broken mari's trust in her as a leader.

the other person who is being set up as a leader, whether she likes it or not, is lottie. before their attempt to leave the woods (after the seance / possession, when everyone is freaked by lottie and only really van is starting to believe her) mari is openly making fun of her.

but after van is more vocal about believing in lottie, and laura lee is advocating for lottie too, there's a shift.

it's not entirely clear whether mari just starts to believe in The Wilderness and lottie's connection to it, or she see's the others starting to believe and agrees to be in the majority. i think it's a combination of the two.

and by doomcoming, lottie is starting to stand out as a leader.

and (especially once the shrooms and booze kicks in) mari is happy to follow along

lottie says they should find jackie and travis, and all the girls follow her into the woods. and guess who's the first one through the door, the first one to go after jackie? mari.

and when they find jackie and travis, they all follow lottie's lead there too - ganging up on jackie, locking her up, and that whatever-orgy-hunt thing with travis. once again, lottie is the one ordering them to go after someone, and they all willingly - eagerly - comply.

and when they have travis on the alter, lottie in her antler queen glory, who's the one standing beside her? who's the one forcing travis' mouth open for lottie to shove the pinecone into? who's grinning like a predator while doing it?

how even after the hunt is over and the shrooms have worn off she's still ready to antagonise jackie, who's setting herself up as an outsider

jackie doesn't believe in the wilderness, or lottie (even after a bear bowed to her and she killed it! metal af! oh and she predicted it!), she didn't eat the stew and go on a non-consensual mindfuck journey like the rest of them. now that lottie is being put on top, and jackie has been alienated from the group, the dynamics have all changed.

jackie orders shauna out, but she doesn't have that power anymore. and while ben and tai try to keep jackie inside, lottie tells ben to stay out of it, and mari is the one who mocks jackie - and further ostracises her from the group.

throughout s2 mari is firmly in team lottie with most of the others. always supporting lottie, going to her morning meetings, participating in the rituals, helping her when she's nearly comatose. so when the starvation and fear and determination to survive wins out, and the group decides to kill one of them in order to save the group, it's agreed it can't be lottie.

but they draw from a deck of cards. whoever gets the queen is the sacrifice. it's random, they're all equals. everyone has to draw a card.

and given that we've seen the first card-drawing-wilderness-choosing session, and the last (so far) in 2021, and they're pretty much the same, we can assume that this is the way it's done all through the rest of those 19 months too.

sure possibly there was cheating, rigging, people trying to save themselves or who they love most. but at this point we don't know.

all we know is that next winter a girl, that is most likely either mari or gen, is hunted down in a ritualistic way before being killed, butchered and eaten.

and as far as mari's character arc goes, it makes so much sense for it to be her.

that she's put all her effort into being in the majority, in being useful and following the leader no matter who they are, so that she can be on top.

only for it not to matter at all. because 'the wilderness chose'

it would be a cruel end for her character (for anyone but specifically) but the show is portraying just how cruel survival and the wild can be. jackie just wants to be loved. she dies alone in the snow. javi wants to help. he dies in nat's place. mari wants to be on top? she dies in a pit.

mari threw jackie aside because she no longer served a purpose for mari, and mari dies wearing jackie's necklace.

it also makes sense because of her constant antagonism of misty - because mari perceives her as being on the bottom, and as long as misty is then mari should be safe. mari is the cook, and after the shrooms incident, she refuses to let misty anywhere near the food

and yet... after pit girl has been turned into food... it's misty that brings the plate forwards. something mari never would have let her do. they all have their roles - for instance, shauna is the butcher, and we know it was her who bled out pit girl (shauna has flashbacks to it when attacking adam). so shauna's role has stayed consistent, if mari was still in the group why would misty be the one bringing the food out? maybe because mari is the food...

and each character has something different going on - lottie has visions, tai sleepwalks, akilah hallucinates a dead mouse as being alive, etc. well mari hears dripping. constant dripping she can't find a source for. until she sees buckets of blood oozing through the walls

"Oh my god! Oh my god! They're dead! They're dead, they're dead, they're dead! They were! No, their blood was dripping on the floor."

Doesn't bode well for her.

[yellowjacketslesbian]

a S3 Van theory / prediction

I think there’s going to be a cliffhanger ending in S3E7 of YJ that will make it seem like Van died in 2021 and the last scene of the episode will be Taissa’s reaction to “losing” Van and we’ll all spend a week believing Van is dead only to find out she survived again in S3E8.  

it would make a lot of sense narratively and allow them to contrast how Van grapples with her ongoing survival as a teen versus as an adult. plus, Taissa almost losing Van in 2021 would also be the perfect catalyst for them to get back together for good at the end of S3 without rushing their relationship. 

there’s a clear pattern already with episode 7 of each season so far having central themes of mortality with Van. like there’s the wolf attack and Van’s “death” cliffhanger in S1E7. then there’s Van’s cancer reveal and the 97’ conversation about Van’s purpose after surviving in S2E7. I just think it’s a bit too coincidental to not be planned.