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@kindrewind-moved
okay! i'm moving van over to a main blog: @kindrewind
same look, same url! i will carry over drafts.
it's not that the Here or There makes much of a functional difference, but i am so focused on van right now and having a really fantastic time that has only Just begun, and so this just makes more sense to me #compartmentally. it's the neurodivergence.
>:)
one small touch from van sends a rush through her entire body, bringing her hope that they’ve made it here —- into a place where she and van can forget about everything in between and just be together, live in the moment, something taissa turner has never been good at, but with van, it feels possible. part of that is just the hope they can forget about what happened in the past and not dwell on how to make this work in the future. for the first time in so long, taissa doesn't want to overthink it. she doesn’t even let herself think about how that comes from such a selfish place.
she starts to smile, softer now, her hand so naturally holding onto theirs— until van pulls away, and the smile falters again.
and then, her expression turns into something of panic, as it often does when she’s called on something— and it’s instinct for her to revert back to politician mode, trying to come up with a story, an excuse, something that puts her back in their good graces. that tactic doesn’t work on van palmer, not like it might have used to, when taissa used it simply to avoid taking a fight further without truly coming to any real closure.
where’s she been? living in a fantasy world, one she’d crafted in accordance to the life she once set out for herself, one that should have changed when she fell in love and saw her life differently, but once they were rescued, she was desperate to regain some kind of control over her life, assuming that the only way to move forward was to get back to every little thing she had planned for herself. van wasn’t a part of that plan before then, which taissa let justify moving on without them, as if she hadn’t just felt empty for it. without van.
she lets out a sigh, dipping her head down in shame, her hand sliding away from van as if she’s in trouble, and it rests awkwardly against her own lap for a moment before she pushes her hands down to her knees and forces herself to take a deep breath and compose herself, like she always does. ❝ i know. i know, van—- i haven’t been there. ❞ not for them. she couldn’t move on if van was still in her life— at least, that’s what she made herself believe in her early 20s, and now that the life she left van for crumbled apart so quickly, so easily, she wonders if that was always inevitable or if that was just a punishment for how she’d treated the only person she loved that way, so fully herself. she hasn't been herself since they were together.
❝ i’m trying now. i want to be. ❞ but van's hesitance is fair— after all, would tai have shown up on their doorstep if the campaign went smoothly, this other part of herself hadn’t been awakened, hadn't forced her to push her family away, leaving her all alone and hopeless? she showed up at van's unannounced, not considering what that would do for van. it was entirely selfish, and yet as she sits here with van now, she tells herself this was supposed to happen anyway. they don’t have enough time left, and maybe that's tai's fault— so for taissa, it feels like her responsibility to make up for it now.
but for someone who always prides herself on having a plan, she doesn't have one here.
❝ can’t we… talk about it? ❞ those same pleading eyes look back to them now. she isn't referring to their history, though— at least, not the ending, just what still exists between them, what apparently never went away in over 20 years of being apart. ❝ our kiss. ❞ it feels so teenage, like they’re sneaking around the high school again trying to figure out what they’re doing, how they feel, how they can make it work. the irony is, she definitely wasn't willing to put a label on it back then, and now, ever since that happened at lottie's compound, she's desperate for some kind of validation, to know that van hasn't given up on her even if they have every reason to. ❝ you felt something. i did, too. ❞ maybe taissa has always wondered if van fell out of love with her in those years in between, while taissa was convincing herself she had falling out of love, too, but the only way to believe that was to not think of van at all.
❝ i know this— ❞ she says, her hand waving around vaguely. ❝ isn't where you imagined figuring that out. but being with you, even if we're not... ❞ she doesn't finish that, because she doesn't even know what’s a possibility between them anymore. ❝ it's the closest i've felt to home in a long time, van. ❞
van murmurs, "whoa, whoa," with eyes screwing shut like they're motion sick from how far ahead the conversation's bolted — there's that, and then there's how taissa's used the word home for the second time despite van's objections. the two of them are clearly talking in different directions, so van urges her from where they've been left behind, "tai. just, slow down. can't we get to that?" the kiss. "all the — recent events."
what they mean is, they want to talk. but preferably in a way that's linear.
there is twenty plus years of lead-up to sift through. there's the fact that, albeit separated, taissa is still married to a woman who seems to have done everything she could think of to keep their family together.
"we can't just be together, taissa. we have to talk about what happened first — what's been happening."
confronting the tribulations of their past isn't exactly an easy feat for van palmer either, who's left it concretely behind. re-examining it head-on is a cause of much discomfort, especially with how van's triumphed over the magnitude of rejection they had experienced there. after they were rescued, after they were presumed fucking dead, they were cast out by those they loved most. gratefully, they triumphed by leaving new jersey, by integrating themself into the open arms of a small but strong and loving community in ohio. they constructed a home for themself by reassembling bits and pieces of a past that they could happily house themselves in, a kind of theater of hopes.
they've been happy. they've actually been pretty fucking okay. and this is how they know that this confrontation has to be done.
there is not another choice for van, who is now physically back, mentally in the midst of it, and looking at their first love. decades upon decades ago, they would have followed taissa into the depths of hell and back. they did. only for her to eventually shut the door on them and reopen it twenty years later without any forewarning; and yet van's recognized that the love is still there. how couldn't be it, with what it was forged in?
"trust me, tai, it's not really my style to sit here and beg ya for an apology. but i am going to ask you to talk. please? i'm," they swallow, "i am going to ask you to remember. i have to."
YELLOWJACKETS, 3x01 "It Girl"
van speaks her name in a way so familiar that it instantly brings her back to a time when she felt no one knew her better than them — when that simple nickname would spill from van’s lips as a taunting plea, or an act of adoration, or a gentle warning. maybe this time, it’s all of those things, but no matter what it is — it sounds like home, too, and more than that, a victory, like she’s captured their attention. like even taissa can relax for a moment.
but nat’s name brings a wave of guilt, one she can’t even begin to explain to van — who knows how much nat meant to her as she meant to all of them, but who doesn’t know of all that happened in between. how taissa did what she could to take care of nat, to protect her, to keep her as safe as she could even if it was always at a distance — throwing money at her to fix a problem, sending her to rehab, bailing her out of jail — but rarely ever offering her a genuine friendship beyond that, something she’s come to realize was probably actually what she needed all these years. but taissa never knew how to give it, despite the promise she made to herself when they returned — that she would keep nat alive — but she failed. van sits next to her now, at a distance, proof of another one of tai’s failures: taissa would do anything for van, even play with fate to ensure their survival, only to leave them as soon as taissa found a path at her own future without them.
❝ it’s good. that… we were together for it. ❞ she doesn’t just me we, as in the two of them, but all of them, though she doesn’t care to specify. she might have resented travis more than he deserved, solely for the sake of being protective over nat (even if she was well aware was just as much of a problem to their relationship as he was), but it hits her now, how van had to have learned the news of his passing alone, left to grieve alone, and taissa doesn’t want that for any of them. the only reason it hadn’t shaken taissa completely was because she was with the others. a part of her wonders if that’s the real reason van’s stayed— so they’re around all of them again, going through it together. a bigger part of her is too hopeful that it’s for her.
van gives her the lightest touch, and taissa takes it, immediately bringing her hand to rest on van’s forearm, holding them close, nodding along to their words— so obedient, a silent promise that she won’t push, even if she is so, so desperate to get closer, both physically and emotionally. but, reasonably so, it seems van’s still keeping a distance between both— and taissa’s patient. she has to be. van was patient for over 20 years.
❝ i know… i know! ❞ another flash of an innocent grin that holds a promise she once broke before: i’m here for you. ❝ i’m just, you know, here to help with… whatever. ❞ she immediately puts her other hand up, as if expecting van to call her on it. ❝ and yes, van, i know you can handle it yourself. just don’t shut me out, okay? ❞
"okay." van agrees from a distance; a 'but wait, there's more.' they're absorbed in thought and speaking in slivers.
this 'more' is pushed aside for the briefest of intervals, because for a few heartbeats van's hand becomes busy with finding taissa's. it gravitates down into her felt touch, where they slip their fingers in-between hers. they want to believe that they can accept her support, the comfort of her affections, without being left cold again.
irresolutely, they fall their hand away, "fuck," and laugh a raw sort of laugh.
van steadies their hands on the rough of their jeans, then flashes taissa a wry, over-the-shoulder smile. "where've'ya been, tai?" that is to say, the answer is not in each other's lives. "okay, uh, for starters," — i loved you; it wasn't me who shut you out — "if i'm not instantly warmed up, it's not because you're down on the playback as the jilted ex-lover." this quip demonstrates a tempered maturing of a past comedic gusto: that of a pre-college kid who would have raised their hand and declared for the full-cathartic-force of it, nope, that was me! nevertheless, it floods forth the same type of relief.
"i, i appreciate what you're trying to do." they swallow, because this is where all of this gets confusing, and van knows that taissa is hurting, too. has lost, too.
would it be so bad? would it be so bad a move to spend these next few months reconnecting with taissa, discovering where they might fit with each other? they've already transferred pharmacies; they have clothes here now. they're not exactly showing any signs of taking off — compounded on how they have yet to visit lottie for whom they feel monumentally responsible in the wake of everything.
"look, you know i'm not just going to cut out on you. on any of us." they whisper, "but here?" like they've intruded.
[ be kind, rewind. ] van palmer from yellowjackets, written by tori. 21+. canon / arc overhauling. ©
VAN in YELLOWJACKETS (2021-) 3.05 - Did Tai Do That?
me laying in bed last night on my google docs app jotting down bullet points for all the points i wanted to tackle in my reply to @ladyintree:
taissa nods her head, looking to them as if she’s waiting for more— more details, more story, more anything, but when taissa realizes what she’s expecting is for van to clue her in on every detail that they no longer (and never really did) owe her, she remembers that van is allowed to be short with her; they’re allowed to keep as much as they want to to themself. taissa has offered her home, she’s offered herself so that van isn’t doing any of this alone— but that still doesn’t mean van has to give her everything.
she’s greedy for more, of course, because she wants so badly to knows everything about van that she’s missed out on, even the most minor details— but she lets it go, lips pursing together, ensuring not to push farther than that and trust that if something had gone wrong, van would tell her.
her face falls as van corrects her— because a part of her hoped that they could easily breeze past the slip of words, but she supposes that van’s certainly allowed to call her on it, because taissa can’t get away with it that easily.
she sits up, something like a pout painting he features as she waves her hand in front of her. ❝ van. you know that’s not what i meant, ❞ she claims, but in a way— isn’t it? she used to be their home, just as van used to be hers, and she’s so desperate to have just the taste of it back— to believe that the two of them together, even if just living under the same roof, can be for the better. that they can find themselves in each other again. ❝ of course, of course it’s not, ❞ she settles, taking a deep breath and offering one small nod.
❝ but, okay, you’re right. i’m sorry. i’m not just trying to be a gracious host, you know. ❞ her head tilts to the side, eyes staring back at them with an adoration that is just so instinctive. ❝ i want you to be comfortable here. ❞ to make it a home, in some way. it's spoken with an air of innocence, like this isn’t the home she’s shared with her family for years, in a life crafted entirely of van’s absence. she tries to ignore that for the sake of van’s comfortability— and her own, too.
"tai," van pleads; taissa's look of affection has knocked the wind out of them. it's familiar, it used to spell sanctuary. it spelled sanctuary even before they crashed. (grass stains under the sun. laughter. worn-out cleats; butterflies in their stomach.) rolling their bottom lip back between their teeth, their head cocks as they sympathetically gaze up at tai.
she is owed more of an explanation when van is the one overstaying in her home, in this house she had shared with her wife:
"nat's funeral. that's happened." they try for factual but it comes out emotionally wrought. finally, van has addressed this — this fact that has humidified the halls which separate them. after natalie's service, their truck stayed firmly parked in jersey. why? why, when they could be back spending the end of their life as planned: enlivened by the pride of their shop (what do you want to be when you grow up? uh, duh) — find fun ways to categorize favorite and unfavorite movies; field recs and weave synopses to a small community in a small college town who find it all preeeetty fucking rad...! not a bad gig.
they're still here because they lost the friend who saved them. because lottie needs them. and because taissa does too. van wants to be here for taissa not just in spite of their history but because of it.
"i told you we would figure this out." it's comically chaste, how van companionably touches taissa's shoulder when they are actually melting beneath her gorgeous gaze (one they never thought they'd see again — and god doesn't that also have to do with their lingering presence. they want to kiss her eyelids, say, get some rest; i'll be here in the morning.) "but i gotta figure out my own shit too, and there's gotta be a right way to do that so everything doesn't just get — " a wide, loose-armed gesture, "irreversibly shot to hell. time isn't exactly an unlimited resource for me, tai."
this house was always lonely in some way, even when it was filled with her family, because as much as they filled it with love, taissa could never give her all in return. that became too clear to her when she had been the one to tell them to go, because it was easier to push them away than to accept their help, and now, as she waits for van to return to a home that is not only their own, but hardly even taissa's, she feels the silence even louder than ever.
like she's constantly waiting for van to change their mind, to return to ohio, alone, choosing to be the one to leave this time. it's not for lack of trust in van— just in a part of her, deep down, that knows she hasn't earned the right to be in their life again. she pushes that part down, though, never willing to be the one to address that.
she sits up immediately as the door opens, flashing a bright, welcoming grin— almost forced, as if she already anticipates their reaction. ❝ you're home. ❞ already, it feels like a misstep, but she's quick to move on, acting casual, waving her hand in front of her. ❝ no, i wasn't... waiting up, ❞ she lies in a mocking tone, brushing it off. ❝ well, i mean, i did just want to make sure you didn't have any issues. ❞ she sits up, waving van over to the couch, acting as if this is normal, like they've been doing it for years, as if that's enough to break the tension and breeze past the awkwardness that still lingers between them as taissa waits patiently to revisit what they felt in the moment they kissed at lottie's compound, some hope of a revival that she knows she doesn't deserve. ❝ —all good?❞
tersely, van shakes their head.
this is not to suggest that the transfer between pharmacies came with any big hitch. it is, instead, a gesture happening within a curt conversation with themself: with the smitten, sportive teenager who was eager to steal any time with tai. echoed as this was by the fireside, in the crackling heat, on lottie's compound.
so when van gets emotionally snagged on taissa's words, they tell themself to shake free of the catch — to keep moving forward. (operative word being keep.)
coming to, "uh, yeah, yeah. the usual. straightforward. long fucking wait time."
a sigh rolls down their spine as they bury their remembering hands in their back pockets. they move toward the couch where taissa sits, and ease down into the space beside her. it's a reasonable space — it's space — and in that space they backtrack, pained, like the words have to be spit out, "— this isn't my home, taissa. if you want to play this role of gracious host, that's fine, it's, whatever — but you can't just call this that."
VAN PALMER in Yellowjackets (Season 1) x/x/x
@ladyintree, taissa.
it’s getting late, later than it feels. van hadn't expected to enter into the sight of taissa, but they do. and because they do, they softly seek through their uncertainty like a sense-memory, “hey?”
there is fondness in competition with frustration, or maybe it just underlies it.
very haphazardly does van toss her keys aside – metal skidding like a poorly skipped stone – where they land, they land. a paper bag from the 24-hour pharmacy is placed down with a little more deliberation. Rx; some candy. tai's clued in now, and van's in tai's house. there is no longer a reason to be covert about this. she just prefers to run these errands independently.
“you weren’t – waiting up for me.” they question.
silently, lottie rises. she tries to be unobtrusive --- she cooks, she cleans, she pretends not to notice things --- but she's directionless, unmoored. as content as she is with her own company, she's grateful for the scraps of community --- of family --- that she's thrown, and van... she suspects that van might actually be glad she's here.
so, she follows her out into the evening: that was never a question. they settle onto taissa's porch, and lottie tries --- truly, she tries --- to mind her own business, to let van come to her. it seems as if she's had a few false starts, though. like the circumstance might call for a shove in the right direction.
"whenever you're ready."
"i'm here." van decides that's enough of an answer.
she is breathing in a goddamn reprieve on her ex-girlfriend's porch, where a small but giving light has rendered her painfully sensitive to the hitches in charlotte matthews' expression.
"my customers are all probably wigged out over late fees."
they joke because joking is another reprieve. it's not about the cash flow, all the -- business bullshit. they just can't care. it's about the friends they've made out of a few returning customers in oberlin; the purposeful, everyday joy her hole-in-the-wall shop brings.
"what about you, lot. anyone ask you that lately."
YELLOWJACKETS 2.05 “Two Truths and a Lie”
something else that boggles my mind which came up during my yj s3 rewatch with laurel last night is the missed opportunity around the man with no eyes as a symbol. i'm all for some ambiguity and leaving interpretation up to the audience if it doesn't laboriously task us with the heavylifting, but what frustrates me about yj specifically is how they established a gamut of symbols only to not fully explore/harness them?!
i had sort of suspected (hoped? unsure; it wouldn't have been unfounded in the text) that the writers were going to take an eta hoffmann (the sandman) approach with tai's relationship to the no-eyed man: the blurring of the boundary between her childhood imagination/fantasies/fears + adult grasp on reality, since he's an enduring boogeyman from a time when she'd have been most likely to believe in them existing.
this would have actually made cohesive how tai locates the figure in a commercial on one of van's bazillion VHS tapes because it would have tightly threaded together ideas about the past, childhood nostalgia (question mark), and interrogating how we carry it with us/how it impacts our outlook(s). in sum: there were ways! there were ways to harness established symbols to develop/add dimension to character arcs, here for taivan who make me Weep, and in a way that would have actively, thematically linked them while developing their individual characters. (screams) i just don't know where they're going with any of it from here without reducing it
i attended the school of shelley long so i tend to think a remarkable amount about a character's expression through their voice, by which i do not here mean dialogue but their. well, voice. the register. the pitch. rise and fall or lack thereof and so forth.
in that respect, something i deeply appreciate about lauren ambrose's characterization of van is how she approached van's voice, in partnership with liv hewson. van's register is low as is. liv hewson as teen! van is a vivacious raconteur with a light but developing vocal fry; then, without abandoning moments of playful inflection, adult! van brings teen! van's vocal fry out more, which becomes rather gravelly and mumbling, thereby indicating van's fluctuating pain and energy levels. in addition, she takes medications which well increase lethargy and drowsiness. it's very sensitively and sensibly acted, imo, and i just think lauren did a wonderful job with it in collaboration with liv who we hear first.
blog's a major wip but check out the theme laurel found for me after i mentioned how the Real Way to go is to set up van's blog like a geocities website.
@desolate, lottie.
van's wet eyes have blurred the art on tai's wall. figures dissolving. when she wills herself to look back, she's refocusing on the definitions of lottie's face.
(who came to who first?)
voice crackling with a low, tired warmth, she seeds an invitation because she won't just leave her alone: "c'mon, i gotta get some fucking air."
