Vanessa "Van" Palmer/Taissa Turner
| Pairing | |
|---|---|
| Pairing: | Vanessa "Van" Palmer/Taissa Turner |
| Alternative name(s): | TaiVan |
| Gender category: | F/F, Femslash |
| Fandom: | Yellowjackets |
| Canonical?: | Yes |
| Prevalence: | Moderately Popular |
| Archives: | |
| Other: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Vanessa "Van" Palmer/Taissa "Tai" Turner is a canonical femslash pairing in the Yellowjackets fandom. With the dual timeline perspective of Yellowjackets, the audience see their relationship going from secret to open in the teenage timeline while slowly seeing it redevelop after years of estrangement in the adult timeline.
Canon
Tai and Van are already in a relationship prior to the plane crash in season one of Yellowjackets, but their relationship is secret from the rest of their team. However, the audience are quickly shown that Tai in the adult timeline (set 25 years later) is married to Simone Abara, with whom she has a son called Sammy, and Van does not appear until season two.
The events leading to their break-up are unknown by the end of season two, though there are plenty of traumatic events during their time in the wilderness as well as tension and resentment when they meet up again as adults.
Fandom
This article or section needs expansion. |
Before the show revealed to the audience that Tai and Van were a couple, some fans already suspected they might be in a relationship based on how the two characters behaved with each other, with shared glances and affection written into small moments in the episode and Tai confirmed to be a lesbian in the adult timeline. As the story-line progressed, fans enjoyed the scenes and developing relationship between the two, especially how they checked in and looked after each other as the events in the wilderness became more severe.
The show generally prompts a lot of theorising in fandom spaces, due to the many unanswered questions and mysteries of the show, and fans often theorised over why Van and Tai broke up. Lauren Ambrose was not announced as being cast as the adult Van until months after season one finished airing, so in amongst much of the theorising over what happened to each character after the wilderness (as only a limited number were known to have survived), some fans assumed she died in the wilderness. This was not unreasonable, since Van was nearly burned to death in the planecrash, then nearly killed by propellor blades, then mauled by wolves leaving her with her facial scars. Meanwhile, other fans suggested that since she had survived all of that, there was no way she could be dead. (It was later revealed in an interview with Melanie Lynskey that Van was originally supposed to die in season one, but Liv Hewson's performance made Van a surviving character[1])
Fans especially enjoyed the lack of homophobia exhibited by their team-mates when Tai and Van kissed the the Doomcoming. While critics complained that it would have been unlikely that all of their team-mates would have been accepting, given that the teenage timeline was set in the 90s, people quickly pointed out that there was plenty that wasn't realistic about Yellowjackets so why should homophobia need to be included.
Fan Commentary
we should talk about taivan more about as a fandom, a black femme lesbian and a butch lesbian in 1997, that’s so fucking cool and I love them to bits, they are so cool. even in the current time period, van with her little shop and taissa(and other tai equally) being this awesome lawyer/state senator.
Relevant quote about the ship
Common Tropes and Fanon
- Pre-canon - As the audience have not (as of Oct 2023) seen how Tai and Van got together, there are many fanworks exploring how this way have happened.
Controversies
While in the wilderness, Tai begins to dissociate and starts to enter fugue states where another part of Tai (referred to as Other Tai) fronts, leaving Tai with large gaps in her memory and sleep walking at night. In the future timeline, Other Tai sacrifices the family dog for unknown reasons, which is the event that leads to Simone and their son, Sammy, moving out and to Simone's mothers house. No specific diagnostic term or label has been given for Tai's experiences in canon. The audience is shown that Van knows about Other Tai and there are hints that she has interacted with Other Tai more than the audience or Tai herself know. Some fans are uneasy about this and what it could mean regarding Tai and Van's future story-lines.
You’re right, she’s not kind, but (teenage) Tai is being sabotaged by her alter ego and manipulated by Van. I don’t think we really know just how much Van has been in contact with dark Tai.
At the end of season two, it is clear that Tai and Van are still attracted to one another when they meet up again as adults, and they kiss while at Lottie's center. Some fans, particularly Black fans of the pairing, were unhappy that Tai had not only cheated on her wife, Simone, but had abandoned her at the hospital following a crash (which is strongly suggested to have been orchestrated by Other Tai) and left her son with his grandmother.
Ngl TaiVan will probably always be a little tainted for me seeing as how they put Simone in a coma to make it happen.# i miss those beautiful black disaster lesbians from s1 #taivan was good in the woods#but simone should be tai's world now#we really wanna kill the black love interest so the white ex can step in?#and i do legit love young taivan#but i just can't love it now not at the expense of simone's character
Other fans have been critical of how some fans of the TaiVan pairing only seem interested in Tai as part of that particular pairing, while showing greater interest in Van as her own character.
so many people claiming to care about taissa only care about her when she's in a relationship with van and it is SO obvious #like if you claim to love tai but you never talk about simone and sammy. i see you villain#hell even her relationship with shauna. like if you just care about van say it!!!!!#don't act like you care about taissa when you don't
it is wild how much less taissa was in s2 compared to s1, and how she essentially became an instrument to service van’s story which... also didn’t get that much screen time either #the fact that tai like never mentions her family (LOTTIE brings it up) when she's at the compound#is wild to me. i know like obviously the point is none of them never really moved on from their lives in the wilderness#but i do believe she at least cares for simone and especially for sammy#even if she's selfish to the point that she's not willing to seek help if it saves her marriage/family
There is also frustration within the fandom about how many Tai/Van works do not feature them in any prominent role as they are instead background tagged to another pairing, often Shauna Shipman/Jackie Taylor or Lottie Matthews/Natalie Scatorccio, and their role in those works tends to be reduced to offering advice to the other characters coming to terms with their attraction to each other.
[@vanscargoshorts]
yellowjackets fandom pls stop tagging background ships in the main tags on ao3 cause out of the 10 most recent fics in the taivan tag, only one it actually taivan. 9/10 are other ships. pls stawp this
[@perikryptonite]
LITERALLY. It's sooo frustrating seeing taivan being shoved into the background ship lesbian guru box 😭😭😭😭
Example Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Fanfic
- i don’t wanna join your club (i don’t want your kind of love) [1] by krokorok. A pre-canon
Fanart
Fanvids
- Never tear us apart [3] by shellstroap. A ship fic paralleling the teenage and adult timelines of Tai and Van's relationship breaking apart, only to collide back together.
Other Fanworks
- GIF set - I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TAI. I DON'T HAVE THAT KIND OF TIME. [4] - GIFs of the scene where Van tells Tai she has cancer, overlaid with song lyrics.
Meta
- Meta exploring Tai, the way she handles fear and processes her trauma, and her relationships with both Simone and Van (Apr. 1, 2023)
Archives and Communities
Other Fannish Resources
(Rec Lists, Big Bangs, Thing-a-thons, Holiday Exchanges, wiki links, etc.)
- (Vanessa "Van" Palmer/Taissa Turner + otp:true) tag on Archive of Our Own
- A TaiVan week, organised on Tumblr, is set to run for the first time in November 2023, using prompts voted on by TaiVan fans [5]. The seven prompts are:
- Monday 6th Nov. - First Kiss
- Tuesday 7th Nov. - Top Surgery Van
- Wednesday 8th Nov. - The Wolf Attack
- Thursday 9th Nov. - College Setting
- Friday 10th Nov. - Pre-Crash
- Saturday 11th Nov. - Adult Timeline
- Sunday 12th Nov. - Wild Card.
References
- ^ Liv Hewson Acted Their Way Out of an Early Death on Yellowjackets - Vulture. Apr.4, 2023.
- ^ yungbutcher Tumblr post, Tumblr. May 4., 2023. (Oct. 6, 2023)
- ^ [LINK description of link], Location of link. Date of comment if applicable. (Date link accessed) ([ARCHIVE LINK Archived-Date link archived])
- ^ Comment on Reddit Post, Reddit. May. 28, 2023. (Accessed: Oct.6, 2023)
- ^ kimwexlers-brownhair Tumblr Post, Tumblr. Jun.21, 2023. (Accessed: Oct.6, 2023)
- ^ shortviolet Tumblr Post, Tumblr. Aug. 21, 2023. (Accessed: Oct.6, 2023)
- ^ [ https://www.tumblr.com/thehours2002/719438047900565504/it-is-wild-how-much-less-taissa-was-in-s2-compared?source=share thehours2002 Tumblr Post], Tumblr. Jun.7, 2023. (Accessed: Oct.6, 2023)