#vorcotec

[gentlejack]

JANE sent: ✪ my muse seeing the ghost of your muse--ok this but reverse, ghost anne visiting jane after she passes away :( MEME / accepting ! @vorcotec​​

        The doors are the greatest indignity of all. They no longer obey to Anne’s authority. Though she may, in a moment of extraordinary strength and focus, manage to rattle a doorknob, she has thus far failed in all endeavours to make the heavy oakwood pivot upon its hinges. It is a humiliation and an eternal inconvenience: she, Anne Lister, mistress of Shibden Hall, bullied by her own home! If she is to pass between rooms, she must - to her own horror - resort to the traditional fashion of a lingering spirit and glide mindlessly, demeaningly through closed doors or solid walls. Even now, hovering uncertainly in the corridor before her bedroom, separated from the one she loves by yet another recalcitrant piece of architecture, she is loath to debase herself thus. But she MUST. It is a cowardly thing, to succumb to the shame of her condition. At last, resigning herself to fate’s consummate barbarity, Anne raises her chin and walks through the locked bedroom door.

Worse things happen at sea. And her sacrifice is worth it.

         In the midst of the room, half slumped across her desk, sits her tired wife. Tenderness and trepidation alike take hold of her at the vision. How lonely she has been without Jane, tied to the estate without a means of deliverance! She steps close, unseen and unheard. Jane's return was witnessed only from afar: Marian's fumbling ineptitude, her father's reclusive mumble of a greeting, the servants' anxiety to please their old master, the cold emptiness caused by Aunt Anne's absence. And Anne herself, watching silently from a formal distance. Interference would have been pointless. Nowadays, she slips abjectly past the sight of all those who occupy the mortal world.

        It is only now, approaching Jane so intimately, that she beholds the traces time has left on those beloved features. Her cheeks are gaunt. Her complexion is ashen, dark with exhaustion around the eyes. Her skin has grown lines unfamiliar to Anne's wandering scrutiny. A whiplash of pain rips through her essence. She longs desperately to kiss those parchment-dry lips, to stroke away the neglect and the wretchedness nestled into the angles of Jane's face. Instead, she extends a tentative hand and lets her fingertips graze the nape of her wife's slender neck. The ghost of a caress. It does nothing - only the fine hairs adorning Jane's skin seem to bristle beneath Anne's touch; a minuscule shiver. Ah! The injustice! Here is her wife - her widow -, returned to fulfil her rightful duties, and she may not reach out to soothe, to hold, to protect!

         Fury contorts her. She grasps the inkwell perched upon the desk and, in one violent blow, shatters it against the wall. The paperknife soon follows, and then the account book Jane is working on; snatched crudely away from the woman's hands and flung across the room with spine-breaking force. Next, Anne's anger unleashes itself against a stack of documents: she tosses the papers this way and that, swearing hotly in her rage. Not a thought is spared for the poor witness of her tantrum ------ until, at last, she freezes mid-throw.

         Jane's gaze, that extraordinary gaze, catches her own.

The papers drop from Anne's grip. “ Jane, ” she whispers. There is no doubt. For the first time, she is SEEN; pinned to the spot by the doctor’s clear, intelligent eyes. Jane feels her. She knows her. She perceives what others may not. But of course. Of course she would be the only one to comprehend. She always has been. “ My wife -- ” Anne sinks to her knees, pierced by hope and adoration. “ Where have you been? You worried me so! ”

[rectoress]

@vorcotec​ said:  It's getting colder. A little of the warmth, too, has leeched out of Tissaia's silvery voice. She's more distant. It's not easy to get her outside now; instead of their walks, Jane takes solitary rides on her bicycle, passing in swift flight down roads she'd walked lingeringly with Tissaia, noting the flowers, naming the birds and the insects. 

She buys tickets for a night of chamber music one Friday, but at the last minute, she puts her bag away with her car keys. She kneels down where Tissaia's been waiting, sat on the couch, and slips Tissaia's high heels off her feet. She bends down and kisses a stockinged knee below the hemline of her dark skirt. "It's alright," she says. "You're tired. We'll stay in." 

 She puts on not a CD, but a record: Brahms, a series of tender sonatas. From the record player, it's a warmer sound, like a little bit of a spring night. She joins Tissaia on the couch and pillows her head on the other woman's lap with a luxuriant sigh. "This is perfect," she says, taking off her glasses to make herself comfortable. She shuts her eyes. "Just like this."

There is careful planning, always, involved in what a night out entails. Especially in autumn where the weather turns forlorn, sick with a muted light prolonging that of lamps Tissaia never is sure whether to turn off or to leave burning, clogged with the mulch of dead leaves smothering gutters and rain pipes, and treacherously carpeting pavements and paths and court yards. It unsettles her, this inescapable whorling of damp, rotting chaos seeping into everything. So when Jane takes it upon herself to cancel an outing she had suggested and organised (much to Tissaia’s dread) Tissaia visibly bristles.

Visibly and quietly.

Janes behaves as she is wont to, with an ease of disposition that is wholly disarming. Tissaia envies it when it doesn’t  simply unnerve her or when she doesn’t resent it. It has taken her an inordinate number of hours spent in thorough, clinical introspection to understand and demonstrate, with as much logic as the abstract given by her predicament allows, that what she resents is the absence of resentment. As is being proven to her by the preposterous Janean change of mind, her considerate gestures of affection and her much too inveigling demeanour. Speechless, stiff, severe, Tissaia observes her. The silence between them is scratched at by the needle of the record player then smoothed down by the delicate music (Brahms, of course) that blossoms about them. Like a cat, at once insufferable in its entitlement and irresistible in its manners, Jane bundles herself on the couch and nestles her head on her lap. 

“I most certainly am not tired.” Her tone is tenderly peremptory. She prises the glasses from Jane’s hand and puts them down on the nearby table - and at a perfect parallel with its edge. “I was ready, Jane Andrews.” Tissaia feels herself surrendering to the sheer sight of her: eyes closed, body almost entirely abandoned to the sonata, mind undoubtedly tossed to the fluctuations of the melody. To her dismay, she watches her own hand rise, her fingertip land between Jane’s eyes and slide down the bridge of her nose before slipping out of a view along the lines under her eye. There, her hand cups, her thumb brushes. It takes her most of the allegro to place her thoughts back in order, to organise them all anew in light of the drastic changes implemented by the look of fatigue Jane claimed to have read on her - fatigue, of all things! Tissaia sighs through her nose, slowly reclines into the back of the couch, rubs at her forehead. It is demanding, this adjustment. Over time, she has learnt that compromises are indeed necessary if one wants to nurture a relationship, that certain angles ought to be pumiced and certain rules revised. 

Like a salve, the music rubs and numbs. And coaxes her, slowly, into the conviction that Jane is right. That, had she not suddenly dropped bag and keys and shoes, put on a record, nestled herself to trap her on the couch, Tissaia would now be agonising over the inane and insufferable small talk people who go out to listen to classical music engage in with an inflated sense of their own culture and a disproportionated awareness of their relevance. There will be no irritable cough or sneeze, no disturbing whispers, no need to keep her gloves on as she visits the restroom. Instead, there is the supple warmth of Jane’s body accommodated by her own, the mesmerising sway she holds over her with an impressive array of idiosyncrasies and habits Tissaia has alphabetically stored in her memory, and the reassurance that the shared experience will not be sullied by the outside world and its autumnal abhorrence. A hum sounds as she closes her eyes as well. “Yes, you’re quite right.” Her hand stays where it stopped, burrowed against the crook of her neck. “It is perfect.”

[fuckingstripe]

@vorcotec said: ‘  maybe  you’re  right  to  doubt  me .  ’ / (    *    & .    —    JOHN  MAYER  LYRIC  STARTERS

Always on the qui-vive. Less so blatantly at times, she’ll give you that. Still, it’s there, not exactly dormant, but lurking, lingering, like some dark amalgam brushing right underneath the surface. At the ready. Well, now she is. Okay then. Stripe looks up, the dry stick of artificial jerky in her hand pausing mid-air. No need for her gaze to sweep about their surroundings: they’re in the open, sheltered from the rain under a bridge offering a meagre pocket of oxygen. That she could placate Knitter before the other could even blink is, she finds, of little comfort; because the medic wouldn’t do it like that. Force isn’t her strong suit. Nor is stealth. It’d go down a different route. Something planned and calculated. Something effective. Would Stripe even see it coming? It all takes places between her ears, doesn’t it? For all her faults (dumb, rookie, reckless at that) Knitter knows how to navigate that fucking land, how to get by with scraps, how to survive. No, wouldn’t happen like that. Not here, not now either. Or would it? Stripes moves her hand again, tears a piece of meat off, chews.

“Why?”

[perfectfoil]

“I’m sorry about Ann.” The apology is served with a cup of tea gingerly placed beside the one the woman had been drinking from and a  tight-lipped smile of contrition. “My friend,” Vera adds, thumb pointing over her shoulder to designate the table she’d been sitting at. “She can be a bit…” Her face briefly twists into something closely resembling discomfort. “She has a strong personality.” And navigating what comes off as aloof bluntness at best, obnoxious entitlement at worst is a skill Vera developed decades ago when it transpired that their friendship wouldn’t survive without it. She’d adjusted herself, corrected her behaviour, rectified certain reactions. Of course, timidity had helped then, and the apologies on behalf of Ann’s comportment had been tacit - a grimace, a shrug, a shake of her head.

“I asked the barista what you were having.” There’s another smile, head tilting concernedly. It’s something about the way the woman, tall and thin, almost bird-like in her demeanour, had carried herself - even in the posture she’s assuming now that she’s sat with hunched shoulders and a certain look in her bespectacled eyes - which has Vera pause and teeter on the brink of regrets.  Around the handle of the pushchair, her fingers’ grip tightens. “I hope it’s ok.”

@vorcotec​

[afraidofchange]

"Erica." Jane's fingertips dimple her hips, thumbs rubbing gently, coaxingly through the fabric of her skirt. "I want you to sit on my face, please." Matter-of-factly put. "You should take your panties off."

@vorcotec​

 The quiet evening in, just the two of them has led to this with Jane’s pliant hold on her hips guiding her, grounding her. Erica catches her lover’s gaze and her request is more than enough to make her face feel hot. “Well, since you asked so... boldly,” her tongue slides across the front of her teeth, though first, she reaches for the small kitten heels she’d worn out, taking one off after the other. They stand level, now. 

  From below, baby blues peer upward as her own hands reach beneath the fabric of her skirt for the hem of the garment in question, pulling from one hip then the other and down, stepping out of them. “So... the couch or... the floor?”

[womanlives]

“SPINE STRAIGHT, GIRL.” Shahrzad’s voice permeates the heavens where her flesh does not. She looks up. There is a sheen in the black of her eyes: I dare you to disagree with me. Never mind the fact that it’s been centuries since either of them have been girls. For one more literally than the other, perhaps. She folds her hands in front of her; the threads of her sari shimmer. She imagines the same effect on her skin. She imagines a vibrant mottling of green as the envy creeps in. 

“You would be a fucking marvel,” Sharhzad continues, jaw set, “if only you’d just own it. Look at me.” The words burn in her throat, and come out sounding like smoke.

@vorcotec / sc.

[helfury]

@vorcotec​ ♡’d          the goddess still walks with a subtle pride to her step, though her stride is no longer as fast or as steady as it once was. nothing comes as it once did: if each step is a test of endurance, then hela has no prayer in seeking any vengeance (yet), or rallying a loyal few to her side. time will be her greatest ally, as will her own talents, once they too begin to heal. she is not, by nature, a patient woman, and yet it is the greatest gift her father ever burdened her with.

here, there is no hood to conceal the decay of her face;  why should she hide? this is not hela’s home, but it is ... good enough, with the destruction of her world. beggars, unfortunately, cannot be choosers, loathe as she is to admit it. nearly as much as hela loathes the next words that fall from her lips —

“aides,” she addresses the other; her head dips in acknowledgement; “consider ... a bargain, on my behalf.” 

[godblooded]

@vorcotec

"Stop pretending to be okay." not yelling but very calmly stated for dr. bloom OR stark, depending on who wants to answer.

she wishes so badly to make it go away. but it doesn ‘ t and , to be frank , it just hasn ‘ t , and to be even franker ? it just fucking won ‘ t. the images will haunt her until the very day she dies and she feels as though they ‘ re the suffering she must always bear. she did not begin wanting to bear it alone — no , not ever , but she has been forced to understand she has to. tossed out into open water in the dead of a horrific thunderstorm , kicked straight through the bureau ‘ s front door , cast out by will and jack alike who , in their own respects , cannot and will not deal with their own healing or hurting processes.

and alana is the casualty. she cannot even begin to force the thought that she deserves anything less than the sight before her — she had frozen making dr . jane andrews tea , and her gaze had snapped up toward the empty hallway in the hallows of this darkened evening. the shadows grew longer and a phantom light had seemed to cast them all their own , rebellious of the night shutting out their own light. night ghasts don ‘ t adhere to the rules.

the teacup shatters. her eyes widen ; they turn a blue so pure that it is winter - time in the chicago of her youth. her hands shake looking down at the pieces of porcelain and , for no good reason , her mind awaits it. of course it does not regather — she does not know why she seems insistent this broken thing will put itself back together. her hands shake. she ‘ d apologized and apologized and then the words come from the scientist ‘ s mouth —

“ okay. “

it comes through a tight throat. the fluorescent lights are buzzing , humming , screaming from above her. the marshmallow macaroon tea scents airy and light from where it ‘ s soaked into her carpet. she can ‘ t move , still standing there , and now looking up , up , to the image of a young woman tattered into unrecognizable shreds that disappears half down the corridor.

she cannot repeat ‘ okay ‘ .

[gentlejack]

Wanna rp ;)

sorry i don’t rp with lesbians or feminists :( 

[rectoress]

@vorcotec said: The window is flung wide onto a winter morning, with the hard, colorless sun slanting its light in, but Jane looks at Tissaia and feels warm. She wants to tell her how it is to be near her--the way she chases off the cold air, how the passing scent of her, faint, clean, a little floral, and sometimes with that sly, brown-crackling whiff of pipe smoke, makes Jane feel silly, and how beautiful she is with her hair down--but the words won't pass her lips; her hand transmutes them, catch at a dark curl gently as Tissaia turns from the opened shutters to her, tracing down its length, then cup her jaw, follow its curvature to her chin, and hold her still for a kiss. "Hm," she says, and leans down further still to press her face into the warm curve of Tissaia's neck, and loop her arms tight around the other woman, fitting their bodies snugly together. "I'm happy," she whispers to her, and kisses just under her ear, just over her heartbeat.

There is an ease about Jane, an ease the likes of which Tissaia has never seen so naturally infused in those born without magic. It disarms her entirely. No matter what Jane is doing, her mind seems to be wholly consumed and her stance follows suit, driven by what holds such a strong, fascinating sway on her that it forgoes anything else. And kissing her, letting her claim a kiss with such simplicity and such familiarity undoes something. As though the feel of her, the mere proximity of the heat of her skin, the taste of her lips still warm and soft and swollen with sleep, the delicate heaven of her embrace are tugging at a thread inside her thoughts. What will come of it? What will unravel? What are you doing to me, Jane Andrews? She doesn’t have an inkling, does she? Can’t even begin to suspect. And Tissaia wonders whether it might surprise her, whether it might deter or even disappoint her? What is it that she expects to find? What is she seeking? 

In those frail hours not yet heavy with the day's toll but light and young and hopeful still, Tissaia instantly detaches herself from a much needed solitude to drift and float on what Jane bestows. It is so mundane, so incomprehensibly uncomplicated. How Jane's mouth there, on the steady pulse in her neck, stoppers the strong, fluid stream flowing through her mind.

Her lips part, stretch into a quiet smile. "It suits you." She pushes a hand through Jane's hair. The temptation, again, to reach for what lingers inside that head of hers and pluck at the delicate tendrils of conjectures, questions, doubts, beliefs, concerns and weave them through her mind's eye. Would she find happiness there, in the intricate pattern? The tip of her fingers are dancing over Jane's nape, down the delicate path of her spine and over the slender slopes of her sides and hips. "What does it look like to you?" she asks, opening her eyes and angling her head to look at Jane. Gingerly taking hold of her jaw, Tissaia loses herself in the contemplation of her face. "Close your eyes." Her hand passes over them. "Tell me," she whispers against her mouth. "What colours? What shapes? Tell me about happiness, Jane Andrews."

[escapedartgeek]

❝ were you afraid? ❞

Zora isn't sure why they are talking about this with Jane. But given that they were willing to answer her questions, many questions before. What is yet another one to dig at the core of the existence that they were navigating.

"I mean.. when I realized there was much less human to me than I thought. The first time I inadvertently shifted into something much larger, grander, weirder than I thought I was. And remember.. I did already have my strangeness as it was."

A small sigh and a beat. "Yeah, I was scared. Terrified. Of the reactions I saw, of what I was seeing myself to be. Of being taken aback by this shift and being uncertain how it came to be. And how...it likely was going to happen without my being aware of it."

Missing information can really place someone in a horrifying situation. And Zora is certainly proof of that.

[alyafae-a]

Holding the newspaper with one her, her other one held the cup of coffee tightly tightly. Articles were read, the cup slowly emptied, and Gwendolyn felt like she still wasn’t ready to start the day. It was one of those days she simply didn’t want to go to work  —  those days were rare, she loved her job  —  and it was oh so tempting to just go back home. But maybe that was all on her for having breakfast at a small café instead of eating at home. Yet another oh so rare thing. She should have known better. It was an add that caught her attention at last. A cruise, Thrill to remember always. She had never been a fan of ships. A vacation, however, that was more than tempting.    ❝ Mexico seems to be a better option, ❞    Gwendolyn mused aloud, seemingly forgetting about the other people around. But why would anyone pay attention to her anyway?     ...     @vorcotec​

[fuckingstripe]

@vorcotec said: *objectifies you* 😏

Astonishment is plain enough on her face, obvious in that obnoxious (and quite frankly, borderline conceited) way Stripe likes to indulge in whenever that exact kind of attention gets delivered. And it’s all the more exaggerated - the wry arch of her brow creasing her forehead, the hook-like quality of her lips curving up up up - when she already knew. Because of course she knew. The medic’s hardly any good at that either. Pretending. Faking. Concealing. Something Stripe usually resents, begrudging Knitter for increasing risks, rendering situations more perilous than they ought to be or already were, or even straight up endangering the both of them. Now, though, oh now she doesn’t mind that fucking trait of her at all, no ma’am.

She pushes herself up from the makeshift gurney they’ve put together and cocks her head, looking down - barely so - at Knitter, roping an arm about her torso. “Is that what’s been on your mind then?” One squeeze is enough to bring her flush against her but she doesn’t wince at the dulled twinge of pain in her shoulder because she’s got her exactly where she wants now.  For a little while there, she says nothing: she simply watches. Her eyes are slowly devouring every inch of Knitter’s face with the same intense dedication put into the scouring of a map but they linger here and there - the corners of her mouth (finely lined), the pronounced shape of her nose, the shadows under her eyes, the dirt clinging to brown strands of hair. The smile morphs into a smirk that dissolves as she leans forward to drag her mouth over Knitter’s jaw, humming quietly, and whispers in a tone more raspy than anything else: “Don’t worry ma’am, I’m down for some of your own brand of objectification.”

[velvetipped-a]

@vorcotec​      ⇢    liked for a starter.  

“ just when you think it can’t get any worse,   you run out of cigarettes.  “ 

[medisinals]

OHHHH MANNN there is definitely like. a contingent of fans who think blackwell is their soft smol bean uwu and like. are EXTREMELY weird and fetishistic about it and if you go into their tags it's all like "omg my baby boy... my soft gay son..." and i'm just going to say it: blackwell kin drama

i thought i was prepared but the last bit wiped me like a dish.  thank you (i hate it).

disk horse time

[archiveghostofaformerself]

JANE ANDREWS / @vorcotec​ ; requests a consult

     IT’S APPARENT FROM THE SECOND SHE CAN’T BREATHE that something is very wrong, and that’s when the pain registers. she’s trying to take a breath, but ribs ache with every attempt, and the last one results in her choking instead. the brunette can taste taste blood and in the same moment she feels it pooling in her mouth before dripping out with each cough.