van palmer from yellowjackets. written by tori. 30. they. dyke.
read this. about. verses.
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@kindrewind
van palmer from yellowjackets. written by tori. 30. they. dyke.
read this. about. verses.
cj and i just fought for our lives on streaming platform pluto tv because it kept actively changing the movie we were watching to how to lose a guy in 10 days. but each time w/ elapsed time. as if it were playing in some other dimension
it happened 3 times. and i don't think you know how exhausting it is to play tug-of-war with m.atthew m.cconaughey. had to post this here because it happened while we were streaming, wyws, etc.
van with more severe scarring and nerve damage btw. adult van with wavy hair that's closer to an emulation of s3 teen/wilderness van btw. van still wearing muscle tees as an adult btw. van not shaving because van stopped in the wilderness and never felt the desire to do it again btw!
YELLOWJACKETS, 2x07 "Burial"
she’s not really sure what to do with that — if van doesn’t want her to go there because they don’t want to hear it, or because they don’t want to revisit it at all… it still feels important to say, but she’s trying to respect their boundaries, trying to understand where she fits into it all.
so taissa presses her lips together, sinks a little more into her seat, and gives a small nod. she couldn’t count the times she’d thought of van over the years, but she can say that it was never easy, thinking of them… the guilt that washed over her when she did, the curiosity and sorrow that followed. all she could do was hope that van was okay, at least. better, maybe.
because, yes, they were strangers by the time taissa started her rise to power — but not in every sense. taissa is still the person known best by van; all the parts of herself she’d tried to hide since the wilderness, all the parts she’d wanted to bury. but they’re still a part of her — and van still knows her, even if they don’t know her as she’s been. it’s hard to consider van a stranger considering all that, but van’s words, ‘we don’t know each other anymore,’ still ring true. they don’t, and that’s what this is all about— she needs to know who van was in taissa’s absence.
in taissa’s lifelong journey of success, in trying to perfect herself, that’s something she’s always understood — we don’t just get any do-overs — and yet, she tries anyway. it’s what she did when they got back — told herself she could just start back from where she left off, as if those 19 months in oblivion never happened, like she could reclaim that time and forget everything that happened to her there.
van included.
and now, here they are, they can’t go back, but they can’t re-do, either. this is something new, as much as it is something nostalgic, something taissa’s long for for years now, despite trying to push it away.
taissa turns her head to them, gives them a small nod. “another chance then, maybe,” she says quietly, hopeful.
but taissa tries to relax into this banter, regaining some comfortability and some confidence within it, how easy it is to fall into place with van. “okay, hey,” she says with a playful scoff, shooting a teasingly stern look at her. “so, we’re not watching any horror movies together,” she warns, like she can’t bear it if van can tease her sitting next to her — but wouldn’t that be exactly why they could, and should?
maybe a horror movie is a little more digestible to taissa when sitting next to van and all their warmth. maybe that’s exactly what the wilderness was — manageable because of their love, something to cling to, something to keep taissa warm.
her eyes narrow for a moment before she’s nodding her head in surrender. “so—“ she says, raising a brow. “what’s at the top of that list, then, palmer?” she taunts, wondering how much has changed in van’s taste… and, of course, how much she actually remembers of it herself.
— taissa gives them a small, playful shimmy in place of actually answering the question, or addressing how much money she’d dropped at a gas station, of all places, but winning them over was certainly the goal. “mm— pretty sure i cracked the riddle. some sprinkled donuts for you,” she says proudly, then holds up the other snacks, raising a brow, as if looking for another win in van’s eyes that they do still like them.
her eyes narrow in at them as she waits for their acceptance. “yes, i drive this thing,” she repeats, nudging her hip against the truck, as if to check it’s quality. “pretty sure i can handle it,” she says, flashing a grin back at van now. “the questions, too,” she says, a bit more confidently than she actually is, because van surely has plenty of questions taissa doesn’t want to answer. but she really does want to make this work, whatever it is, and she can’t get there if she avoids it all entirely.
van isn’t exactly giving in just yet, but taissa takes it as a win anyway. “come on. no one likes driving that much,” she insists, a subtle assurance that this isn’t tai’s attempt to coddle them just because they’re sick — she likely should’ve been helping them drive to new york in the first place when tai had asked them to bring her to the compound, but it was a bit harder to banter then. “besides, look at all these snacks you’ve gotta eat,” she adds, holding them up with another playful grin, shoulders shimmying again.
over twenty years ago, this was the hope that powered van through: that another chance could be waiting for tai and van outside the wilderness. with decades having passed, van's shocked by an old, worn-down urge to make sense of what taissa's just said. if her words could mean anything for them now.
taissa isn't in a place where she can just forget about the past anymore, the illusion that it could be left behind in those woods, and confronting this past isn't easy for van either, who's tried to shove it down and numb it away, but the hardest times have always felt more possible when tai's been there by their side.
they know tai feels the same, otherwise she wouldn't have traveled to them that first time. feeling the gravity of taissa's gaze on them, they draw in a shaky breath. no, taissa can't outrun the shadows of their past (none of them can), and it was van's idea to take taissa back to ohio.
for all of their emotional frustration, in the push-pull aftermath of taissa's apologies, van has to acknowledge this part of it, that she's here in their passenger seat because they want her to be — and this, alone, has wrought out a thousand emotions in them. so after taissa mentions another chance, van laughs, a raw and disbelieving sound. she didn't say anything funny. it's that van wants to ask, mostly as a reflection of themself, what else could driving back ten fucking hours the way they came look like?
attempting to explain themself, they fall short, because they're not emotionally there yet. "sorry. i didn't mean to, um, thanks. for saying that." their smile's unsure, folding into frown, because it's complicated to digest taissa's apologies when they're hearing them twenty years later, when the circumstances around the decisions they made after rescue weren't uncomplicated, and when van doesn't like being made out to feel like they're somebody to feel sorry for — especially not by taissa — their life hasn't been all fucking misery, but losing her as a lifeline was, and these acknowledgements of how their relationship ended do treat their deep hurt with a sting that isn't without soothing.
tai and van can't go back and change any of this, or its outcomes, but they have this time together. they're driving back, this time, into the life van's made for themself, and van is struggling with some of the sincerity around this. they do feel it strongly, and too much feeling will make them feel ripped open, and whenever van's felt split open it's into tai's arms they've collapsed. this is the same tai who refused to leave their side when they begged to be left for dead.
this is the same tai who's beside them now, "really."
firing a tease back, "okay. backing up, i never said we had to rule out horror completely." although it feels that they've been staring it in the face the past few weeks. a break from it wouldn't be the worst thing. but movies don't play out the way life does. thank god. they're easier to make sense of. get meaning out of. movies offer stories van can tell. those are stories they can hit pause, stop, or play, whenever they so choose.
"besides, ruling out horror would snub what that part of my collection has to offer." a prideful remark, and the return of a grin. van's absolutely showing off, and taissa knows their flirting style to catch that. she asks for van's movie recommendations, and they slide their hands down the wheel as if their palms are thinking for them. "oh, i come with suggestions. but," and here's what van can offer in this moment, to comfortably express their wanting to be with her: "take my word for it, tai, you'll want the full browsing and selecting experience. that's the entire point of a video store."
it's a playful suggestion, coming from van's need to get back to their life and embrace her in the joys that they've achieved in their store. plus, they're curious to see which movies would attract taissa's attention.
their past together lives under the surface of this suggestion, too, as van dragged taissa into video stores in their teenage years waaaay more than once,
and before the crash. it's to revisit the tangibility of another kind of memory.
— there are countless memories that taissa's kept about van, including their favorite snacks which have, for the most part, remained substantially unchanged, which can't be said for everything about van palmer. "score," van laughs, heartfelt, a big win for them both. a win across the board as van peers into the variously assorted snacks. their blush begins to cool only when taissa makes moves to 'assess' the truck, and now that van's taking a break from driving, slouched against it, they're not sure if they have it in them to refocus behind the wheel.
touching their eyes, they sigh. "i am feeling pretty beat." they admit this much, but it's low, quiet, and they look anywhere but at taissa.
unhooking the engine key, it's dangled, dropped into her palm. "k, so, we're under thirty miles out. straight shot." they don't actually doubt taissa's capabilities, and, well, the imagined visual of her behind their wheel is pretty fucking hot.
"show me what you're made of." they reach out to playfully snatch the bag of snacks, like it's gotta feel like a swap.
"that's medication for me to mind my own business you should take two" <3
thinking about this line again but mostly as a run-off from thinking about another van joke/line: "that way when i flatline everyone'll know they can go to lunch"
it tells you almost everything you need to know about the multifaceted way van employs humor in the adult arc. it's dark and witty, but it's a projection of van's deepest wounds. it's what i tend to call "jokes that make van feel worse" in that it's absolutely coming from how they've long felt they're going to be left/abandoned BUT it's not Only self-deprecating and it's not at all unproductive because this IS the way van is able to articulate themself on that pain. it's a way of comfortably expressing that. so it's hard to see it in just one way even if i think we should ask ourselves how often van's humor is actually helping them (it does frequently; other times i think it risks digging them deeper) but as i was rambling about this morning, it's the LAYERS to van's humor that are endlessly compelling to me. there's a lot going on in it. and in how they use it. and this is just the adult arc because it changes/evolves over the 25 years we know van. ahhh!!
l.iv h.ewson playing pool in a braid btw
thoughts?
No thanks, I'm trying to quit.
@kindrewind said: i can find somewhere else to stay.
her composure slips, just for a second: her eyes widen, her brow furrows. she shouldn't be surprised ⸺ it's a line she'd delivered often enough, by the time she was van's age, always ready to pack at a moment's notice. then again, she'd never been half as casual: lana's likely never been that casual about anything.
"if you want to go," she says carefully, weighing each word, "and there's nothing i can do to make you more comfortable, i can help you find somewhere else." putting those sorts of plans in motion is part of her job, after all: it's far from an empty offer. "but i'd love it if you stuck around. we both would. it's ⸺ probably her fault i keep bringing people home, to begin with."
this is the work lana does, van tells themself. she can't help helping.
they can't feel that her efforts are too much about them. if van feels that they're being seen into, their skin will itch and flame up from the inside, and they'll say even less.
staring down at their sneakers, box-new, they almost hurt to look at. they feel dishonest, not everything can just be remade as new. humming, it's an unsure but receptive sound, because lana hasn't pushed. lana's never pretended to be some 'replacement' figure, either, that van's never actually known. and when lana says, her, the working nerves in van's face turn up into a half-smile. their stomach starts to settle.
"you do this a lot."
re. the set photos from yesterday of liv filming as teen/post-resc van wearing the outfit adult van died in, if not a conspicuously similar one. am predictably losing my mind. because if true. what do you mean "you practically live in the past. half your wardrobe is sleater-kinney tour tee shirts (AND THE DENIM YOU WORE AFTER SURVIVING YET WILL DIE IN)"
now. a lesbian does not own just 1 denim shirt. it is to laugh. however it does unavoidably make me think about how liv retroactively wore chains and rings during the plane scene as a send-off gesture to the collaborative work with lauren <3 (which makes me go :( :') </3 in the event that this is something liv just has on bts)
Lauren Ambrose as VAN PALMER YELLOWJACKETS ◆ 2x04 "Old Wounds"
@lifeforms: it never occurred to me that i could have asked for help.
"this is feelin' like a conversation we've had before," back when lana opened her home, and it suffocated van at first. now lana's in van's home, and they know what she already knows: "and anyway you're off-the-clock."
watching i saw the tv glow with @ladyintree like, psst. that's van's wagoneer. do you see van's wagoneer.
while you were streaming/van's video store thoughts but angled toward the premise of this post, being:
he glares back at them, as playful as travis can muster. "good thing i'm not asking you to actually hire me," he counters, a small grin finally tugging at his lips.
their response doesn't disappoint him — it only brings out a small chuckle, pleased to hear that not too much has changed. "frozen pizza works for me." really, anything would, because he refuses to impose too much, no matter how much van insists that he's not doing that.
still, it is an opportunity to offer up something about himself — and travis doesn't usually take those, but it's van, and van's opening their home to him, maybe it's something he can do for them the longer he stays (though, he still hopes it's not too long.)
"taught myself to cook a few years ago," he admits, raising a brow. "maybe i can teach you a thing or two. you at least have some spices for that pizza, right?" he adds with a small, almost bashful smirk, because he doesn't fall so easily into the banter, but... he does remember that van is one of the few people in his life that have made that easy before.
"good thing," van echoes, walks to the fridge where they crack open the freezer. from its steady mechanical hum, they pull a wheel of a pizza from its unorganized slant. van's groceries are not in excess. they're what's cheap and convenient.
travis shares something about himself, and even if he hasn't expressed the resentment toward van for which they seem to wait like a heavy sky — it feels like an offering. they both might be somewhat fucked up, but they've been living their lives like anyone. sometimes that's the issue, the invisibility of this struggle. sometimes it's forgiving: travis deserves those small joys. van doesn't not relate, with it being built into those very shelves of their store.
so they lean into it, asking, "did you?"
setting the pizza down in its plastic, they open the cabinets for him to review, "well, here's what we're workin' with," the basics, mostly. "what do you suggest, chef trav?" the nickname an involuntary roll, easy, like care, like arms keeping him close.
taissa gives van a small, slow nod, and then focuses her eyes ahead again, wondering how much of van saying that is in defense of something that taissa told them, or implied, long ago. she trusted van even when she had no reason to — when van had every reason to hold everything they could against her, but she never doubted them. van’s not the kind of person to betray her that way — even if taissa betrayed them, first.
“i knew,” she says, mostly under her breath, shooting van a look that says i trust you.
and please, trust me, too.
just barely, she sinks into her seat again, van repeating those words enough to make taissa feel ashamed. as a teenager, the thought of nat or shauna judging her always pissed her off, made her that much more determined to never give them reason to — but now, in the aftermath of everything they’d all been through, after the bonds they’ve all formed, she hates to know that van was looking down on her. she also knows she’d deserve it, given what her own rise to spotlight put them all in the crossfire, even if she wanted to believe it wouldn’t affect anyone else.
taissa frowns, looking back at them finally as van corrects the question. it’s not what she meant to ask, no, but she supposes that she deserved that callout, too.
she wanted to know if van resented her for being put in the spotlight, but she hadn’t considered what it would do to van to see not just taissa, but her family, too — full of all its pretend glory, celebrated with all the platforms taissa stood on going back to them.
“i didn’t think about what it would be like for…” she pauses, taking a breath. “—you to see all that.” she nods her head, taking the beating, eyes glancing over van again. “i’m sorry.” and that answers the question she did have — she was selfish. maybe she doesn’t actually have to ask van that question to know it’s what they think.
she starts to smirk, a little lighter now, as van agrees — a victory in itself, really. but her head falls back on the headrest and she groans. “oh, sure…” she says with a small grin, implying she doesn’t think there are many. that may not be true; taissa just hasn’t exactly been a rom-com person in… a long time, though she’d be lying to herself if she claimed she didn’t learn plenty from them. how to portray a happily married woman, perhaps.
she’s so caught up in ‘babe’ that the accusation doesn’t even prompt tai’s usual, angered defense — because now there’s a bright grin on her face, and for a moment, she’s able to pretend everything is fine. everything is good. and there was a time when she refused to let van see the parts of her that scared even taissa, but then, van came to understand her maybe even better than taissa understood herself — and for that, she can accept their accusation, doesn’t feel the usual need to hide it.
“—it’s stupid,” she says, eyes narrowing in on them as a mostly playful warning. but her eyes linger for a moment before she’s taking a deep breath and giving an accepting nod. “so, yeah. okay. i might get a little spooked. better to just avoid it all, right?” which is spoken a lot lighter than tai feels — avoidance had always been an easier route for her. “what, don’t tell me you’re dying to give me a thousand horror recs—?” she asks, a more playful grin returning.
taissa nearly makes another comment about the truck, but she decides to go easy on it — especially as she notes the hint in van’s words, so desperate to really ask about how they’re actually feeling, but she’d promised van that she would back off a little, not hover as much as she desperately wants to. which isn’t easy for taissa to do. still, she makes a mental note to get them some good snacks in place of more questions van definitely doesn’t want.
her eyes look to van’s hand, then trail up to their eyes, a soft grin on taissa’s lips in anticipation for whatever this is — even the smallest crumb welcome. and when it comes in a compliment, taissa’s smile grows wide, proud. she’d overthought the outfit and is pleased that van seems content. “looking good yourself, palmer,” she taunts, her own hand reaching to briefly drag over van’s arm before she’s turning with a small wave that tells van that she’s got it under control.
and she hurries through the gas station, grabbing some frosted donuts — with sprinkles — a few waters, and some other various snacks she remembers van enjoying, even if tai wouldn’t necessarily eat them herself.
heading back to the car, she holds her findings up proudly and grins back at van — she won’t say it, but she’s concerned, noticing the way van seems to need a break… and also recognizing that they likely won’t say it. “want me to drive the rest of the way? give you a break from trying to tear that steering wheel apart?” she asks with a playful smirk, hoping that a joke might take away from the fact that she’s trying to take care of them, afraid van will be quick to shut her down otherwise.
van grimaces, giving a small wave at taissa's apology. she can say she's sorry now, now that van's in the seat beside her with time catching up to them; taissa's oldest fears inhabiting this space between them; but would she have considered how van felt before all this — during the determined success of her campaign?
"you don't have to go there." they murmur, not soft, the words tumbling rocks. passing taissa a remembering look, they are doubtful that she would have considered their feelings and yet they're learning that they have crossed her mind over the years.
by the time that taissa willingly took up the spotlight, breaking that collective promise, tai and van had become strangers to each other. strangers who knew each other more intimately than anybody else could and ever fucking should. feeling a sting during moments like these, van hasn't forgotten how taissa decided that she had to leave their relationship behind in order to achieve those successes in which van would see her photographed.
van remembers more than what feels fucking fair sometimes. the violence of the wilderness, the love between them which was their armor and their weapon. after rescue, as the years went on, those horrors diffused into haunts; and having been dropped back into a world that wasn't actually interested in supporting any of the survivors, van didn't have the sanctuary they had once built with taissa anymore, either.
as much as van tries to move beyond this apology, feeling heard in some part, it enters into a conflict with what difference it makes. their eyes widen into something frustrated and frantic. that same panic needles through their voice like a shooting pain: "we don't just get any do-overs."
how they phrase this is painfully young. they feel younger and smaller than they are. like they're back in their early twenties, at shauna's joke of a wedding, dizzy from an open bar, and drunker off the vision of taissa who is somehow their 'ex-girlfriend,' like anything about what they had could have been referred to in terms so hollowly mundane. but what's being awakened in van now, as it was back then, is the growing awareness that there can never be any going back; and that's where these apologies fester into frustration for van. this isn't entirely on taissa, who's been doing her best to acknowledge van's feelings, which since their conversation last night has brought some emotional relief, but it's the challenge of accepting that apologies can't rewrite their past. that the hurt and the wrecks have been done.
understanding the draw of nostalgia better than anyone, van regularly feels the visceral pull of wanting to go back to a feeling of when the past could have gone differently. they've reconstituted the good parts of the past into their present life. from those feelings, however, arises the straining awareness that they can never actually go back. this is true of the rupture in tai and van's relationship, too, and van, living with a changed relationship to time, is moving closer toward making the discovery that they need this fact recognized: that all there is is the time they have left.
tai and van will never be able to bring their friends back. van will never forget what it feels like to shuffle lives in their hands until they've memorized a face for each suit. tai and van can't get back years together for which those lives were supposedly sacrificed. the reality is that they went in the different directions they likely always were going to. presently, van's sick, driving taissa into a life that they've built for themself entirely separate of her. they won't be able to get any years back, but it's important to van that tai recognizes they do have right now. with them both here and breathing, maybe those sacrifices weren't, in the end, for nothing. tai isn't living with the altered relationship to time that van is (which can already feel isolating), but can't she at least see, with the two of them here, that this story between them, in all of its love and its horror, isn't over yet.
it's still going, whatever it is. and like every time past that something's happened between them, van doesn't know what to call it. there's never been a name for what they have.
but van can feel it. van feels it in the way taissa toys with them, confessing to getting spooked by horror flicks (and how palpably her real, lived fears pulse beneath that confession). proud of themself, van confidently snorts. "just a little? mn. huge understatement." they tease back, just to take pleasure in the playfulness that they used to use to tether each other through the horrors. likewise, tai catches van's act of avoidance. van discerns tai's fears; tai discerns, whether or not she means to, van's use of movies as an escape into other stories, other worlds, when van's own wasn't very savory: "but, uh, to answer your question, no. so happens that horror's coming in dead last on my list of appealing genres to show you right about now, thanks." they say seriously; but leap their brows at her almost comically, ya catch my drift?
— out of the truck and into the crisp air, the fading daylight spits sparks around them. the engine ticks hot as it rests. heat runs up van's spine as tai answers their touch by dragging her hand down the rough of their sleeve. humming at her compliment, it fades out into a smirk. tired, wordless, they trail their fingers low over the skin at her hip, where any bashful look in their eye deepens into something like hunger. something like the night on the compound. something like tai's hot breath in their mouth.
"i'll leave you to it," they salute back her little wave.
while taissa's on the hunt for snacks, van fills up the tank to where it's just enough to make the last marker. in solitude, they wrestle out a bottle of pain relievers from their backpack in the trunk. eventually, it's second nature, how van registers the sound of tai's footfalls. they look up to see her displaying assorted goodies with such enthusiasm that it squeezes a heartfelt laugh out of van. "shit." squinting from where they're leaning against the truck, they work at better seeing what she found. "you win the lottery while you were in there?" realistically, they're more tired than they are hungry, and they look it — and they also look very fucking won over. biting their smiling lip, "what'd'ya get?"
van eases down when taissa pitches her offer to drive that last marker. physically, they're overcome by a wash of relief at not having to hunch over the wheel a second longer. emotionally that relief is quickly shot through by tense reluctance. neither will they let slide her jab about tearing the wheel apart, not when taissa's rapid-fire questions had more than something to do with that clutch. eyes narrowing, they shake their head and look at her through errant strands of hair. "wait, wait just a sec. you wanna switch off? meaning, what? you drive this thing — yeah, didn't forget that — and it's my turn to play twenty-fucking-questions?"
chewing at their cheek, they are starting to feel wiped. all of the hours they've already drove would be a lot on the healthiest person. hand in their coat pocket, they feel the silver bite of their keys and glare at taissa because they're actually considering this in spite of themself, "ugh."
molly r.ingwald getting cast as vicky palmer are they actually going to give attention to van's postresc life because i am throwing up