strixamans

[strixamans]

Your OC as the Solar System [Tag Game]

Tagged by @arachnomancer a while ago, finally got to it.

Rules: Bold what applies - italicize sometimes - strike out never. (Bonus): Color the ones that especially fit. Tag some friends to play along!

For Strix, of course... (render by me)

SUN • egotistical • melted wax wings and fingers • stretching sunburnt skin • the most generous soul • blood in the fruit • halos • anger on fire • high vitality • thunderous laughter • is pride really a sin? • halogenic aura

MERCURY • expansion of the mind • silver-tongued • an everlasting wanderer • polyglot • high dexterity • handwritten letters • innately critical • en vogue • eyes in the trees • hidden libraries • there’s always room for improvement

VENUS • in love with strangers • iridescent waters • love potions for your mirror • selfless devotion • shattering crystal • seafoam upon sand • the golden ratio • drowning in your own passion • material value & high principles • luring • plush lips

EARTH • fresh springs • tree hugger • we can start again tomorrow • a blazing rainforest • respects survival of the fittest* • nature’s adversity • lazy bones • constantly evolving • flowers sprouting from wounds • a granite altar • fossilized remains

MOON • illusory • silver shimmer off the ocean • secrets and gossip • cycles of reincarnation • a crybaby • physically ethereal • shared glances with a stranger • cat eyes • mistrusting their intuition • fear is a prison • ornate magic wands

MARS • healthy competition • attraction and repulsion • magma and rubies • a blade being forged • wrath wrath wrath • malefic • intense eye contact • cannon fodder & fireworks • blood floods • copper taste on your tongue

JUPITER • red robes and a suit of armor • beacon of stability • leader by birth • thunderbolts and lightning • guilty but can’t stop • secret rich kid • golden touch golden tears • innate optimist • failure isn’t an option • constantly reaching for more • unfinished symphonies

SATURN • traditional • overbearing energy • a sculptor of reality • this existence is a karmic one • has a heart it’s just.. way down deep • law, order & justice • avoid all necessary risk • the sound of shackles clanging • sisyphus’ struggle • grappling with the reality of time • self-governing

URANUS • psychedelic funk music • overflowing cups • a rebellion with skin • looking good in photo id • oblivious but caring • middle fingers in the air • double rainbows • icy diamond exterior • holographic • afraid of their own mediocrity • pearlescent smoke

NEPTUNE • an elegy for the lost • dissolving boundaries • white horses • the burden of mystical conditions • deceptive • escapism is their reality • a polarizing entity • artists soul • paranoia • searching for the unseen • a siren’s swan song

PLUTO • angel statues over graves • power** • the cycle of necrosis • transformative • unfathomable depths • an ivory tower toppling over • screaming at the sky • violets and irises • eclipsed darkness • speaks with their shadow • sex, death, rebirth

*not social Darwinism **depends on the flavor

Took me a minute to get to this one and I'm not sure who's already done, but @dramatiquechipmunk @dr-acula121 @lolthwoven @alwaysmauria here are some tags

[strixamans]

Favorite Things [Tag Game]

Just some things I like. Thanks, @arachnomancer!

favourite cold drink: white wine

favourite hot drink: coffee

favourite sweet: my mom makes the best desserts.

favourite actor: Keanu Reeves

favourite singer: idk... Mitski?

favourite movie at the moment: Fascination (Jean Rollin). Titane.

favourite song at the moment: Light House - Future Islands

favourite video game at the moment: BG3

favourite season: Spring. Fall is great, too.

favourite flower: Trillium, Columbia lily (I like the big asiatic tiger lillies, too). Orchids. Cactus flowers.

favourite scent: Jasmine, leather, cedar, sandalwood.

favourite animal: birds- especially owls, corvids, and hummingbirds. Orcas. Big cats: leopards, mountain lions, and jaguars. Special shout out to coyotes.

favourite weather: thunderstorms

favourite tree: Western red cedar, Douglas fir, quaking aspen. Big oak trees.

how about you guys? @vaksynisback @arafel0194 @vividiana @alwaysmauria @dramatiquechipmunk @preciouslittlebhaalbae @dr-acula121 @tthisonebites @sawickibalisong

[strixamans]

It wimdy

[strixamans]

Follow-up (self-care) snippet

Winding down from this one. And then I'm done, for now...

Astarion looks at her, really looks, though she will not meet his eyes. “You are real, you know. Real to me, certainly. Very much so.” “To you,” she replies, her voice laden with beleaguered irony, as she hugs her knees tighter to her chest. “Always to you. Everything to you.” “No,” he says quietly. “In general. In your own right. Perhaps the only real thing in all the world. Or so I think, sometimes…” For a moment, neither speaks. She stares off into the distance. He fusses with his nails. Then, Astarion clears his throat, and rests his hands squarely on his knees. And he says, earnestly, “I’m sorry, Strix.” “What for?” Her eyes remain fixed ahead, boring into the fog. “For everything. Every awful thing I said. You’re not stupid, or outrageous, or… any of those things. I didn't mean them. There’s nothing wrong with you…” He pauses. “I was just… angry, I suppose. Not that it’s any excuse.” Strix spends a silent, agonizing minute contemplating his words, before she finally speaks. “I’m not sorry I called you a coward.” It stings—no doubt about that. But Astarion swallows it down, watching her suck the inside of her cheek between her teeth. She winces, just slightly. Must have caught a fang. A few more seconds pass. “I am sorry about the butler, though,” she says. Astarion waves it off. “Well, I was going to turn him anyway. The man was getting old. And as you know, I am loathe to replace him.” He smiles at her. And finally—finally, she turns her head to look at him. “And keep him as an old man for gods-only-know how long?” She exhales sharply. And just a little bit, she smiles at him, too. “That's fucked up…” Already, he feels warmer in the cold winter air. “Come now, darling. You think he actually wanted to die?” Astarion chuckles dryly. “In fact, I seem to recall him screaming for you to stop, while you were murdering him…” Strix glares at him sidelong, smiling just a little more. Heartened, he goes on, “Still, you probably did him a favor, in the end. Who knows when I would have gotten around to it, otherwise? He only would have gotten older… Although it’s true you might have traumatized him, a little.” “Just don't compel him to be nice to me, or anything.” Her eyes flick away, then return, while an outright smirk finds its way to her lips. “I don't need a butler. Unlike you…”

[strixamans]

Snippet day

Have collected snippet tags from @nw39, @roguishcat, @lolthwoven, and @shandoratheexplorer. Thanks, everyone!

Here's an excerpt from the dramatic fight that has possessed me for the past couple days. Spoiling heavy now, because it will probably be a hot minute before this makes it to publication😅

Anyway, warning that this a bit dark, and it does depict a pretty ugly argument which does get a little physical at the end; though Ascended Vampire Lord Astarion is the one getting slapped in the face, and I consider that to fall on the corrext side of "punching up vs punching down." There is also a self-inflicted injury.

After the cut.

(also, tags for @dramatiquechipmunk @arachnomancer @alwaysmauria @deadly-diminuendo @motherzhiv)

Her laughter ceases. “A real vampire,” she muses. “Like you.”

Some fucking nerve…

“Don’t be silly,” he chides. “There are no other vampires like me. I am the Vampire Ascendant. And as such, I have no need to compel you.”

The more he says, the more his simmering temper threatens to boil over. But Astarion doesn’t stop. “…I will always be stronger than you are. Faster than you are. In every charming little way that you might find yourself with power, my treasure, I will always have more of it. Always. And you would do well not to forget it.”

The artificial calm that had briefly settled over her dissipates in an instant; the passing eye of a storm. “You know, it’s almost like you actually want me to hate you. Like that’s what gets you off,” she says, hushed and venomous. “You certainly get off on making me feel small.”

“That isn’t—”

“Fair?” Strix interrupts—though he was actually going to say ‘true’. “No, it isn’t,” she continues, raising her voice. “And that's exactly how you want it. How you made me. Of you, and from you. To be less than you. A fucking helpmate!”

Shouting, now: “…Because for all your fucking power, you’re still too weak to face the world alone!”

Her seething fury descends upon him, ripping down the cord, and his own rises to meet it. “Stop this!” he commands her; shouting, himself, to no avail.

“Coward!” she shrieks. And as he takes a step towards her, she takes another back.

“Stop this, Strix—” he begins. But his raging order is cut short; when she brings her right wrist to her mouth and buries her fangs in it, deep as she can go.

Howling agony explodes from his own right wrist in kind. He can feel her reaving vein and rending sinew, jerking her head like a beast tears meat from the bone. Astarion stutters, eyes gone wide with shock and overcome with pain; watching in horror, as the blood spills out around her mouth and drips, drips to the floor. The scent of it bursts into the air, iron-rufescent, between them.

Then, with pain still screaming from her wrist and his, Strix pulls away from the wound; only to spit her mouthful of blood in his face, turning swiftly on her heel.

At once, his horror is fury again. Astarion lunges for her. But at the very last fraction of a second, she whips back around; and in a single, fluid motion, with her left hand, slaps him hard across the face.

He’s faster than her—she shouldn’t have been able to do it. It must be the shock.

Certainly the shock; when, while he gapes, she slaps him again, even harder.

The impact of her ring, the one he gave her feels, uncannily bruising at his cheekbone—the damned Raven Queen! But Astarion has reached his limit. He slams into her, seizing her by her wrists, and pins her to the wall.

Empathetic pain swells in his own right wrist, as his hand makes contact with her injury. Though the wound is closing fast, a lazy flow of blood persists, trickling out beneath his fingers.

Astarion growls, “Enough.” But still, she isn’t done.

“What, are you going to hit me now?!” Strix taunts; her grin, her eyes, her voice; all of her, pointed and maniacal. “Really hit me?! Not like my pathetic little slaps…”

How dare she?! He can hardly believe his ears. And there is nothing in him, nothing left to stem the flow of bitterness. “You would like that, wouldn’t you? If I finally gave you something real to complain about? Something real to hate me for?”

“Real?!” She cackles, “No, no… Stupid thing.” Then, Strix lowers her voice to a menacing hiss: “I am not real. Only yours.”

There’s wildness in the whites of her eyes, and a violence in the carmine. Suddenly, the sight of her like that gives him pause. It wasn’t a taunt—she believes what she’s saying.

I am not real. Only yours...

She is real, though.

He releases her wrists. She slips past him. And when he reaches for her—not to restrain her, just to reach for her—she shrieks, “Don’t touch me!” And he recoils.

She stalks down the hall, throwing open the first door, to his study. Astarion follows her to the threshold, but no further; watching helplessly as she makes for the window, and unlatches it.

His wrist throbs. His cheek smarts, though it may by now be only psychosomatic—he can’t tell. But, watching her form become nebulous—then smaller, feathered—what Astarion does know, what he feels with all his wounded heart, is this: that he would let her slap him a hundred, a thousand times more, if she would only come back.

[strixamans]

Last line game

Tagged by @nw39, @shandoratheexplorer and @arachnomancer

Little else—until the gentle rustling of his clothing when he sits upon the platform, where the gore that was his sister hit the stone. He rests his hand upon it. “Oh, Dal…” Dal, Dal, Dal, Dal… Back from across the chasm. “She’s lost her mind, Dal. I don't know what to do. Can you help her?” her, her, her, her… No answer. Only stone, and the distorted sound of his voice. Becoming frantic, he goes on: “Dal, please, can you help her?! I don’t know what to do, please, I…” I, I, I, I… Echo, fading into darkness. A first-person pronoun swallowed by void.

tags for @dr-acula121 @alwaysmauria @b-e-lindstorm @nocryptographer @fartasticdurge @chaushaus

[strixamans]

i read this yesterday and just adore it. highly recommend

The Sixth Pint

Drop alert: The Rugan POV one-shot

First time ever slapping that #No Plot/No Porn tag on a fic - and honestly? Worth it Just vibes, teeth, and a whole lot of mess Rating: Explicit Pairing: F/M Summary: He's a smuggler with impulse control issues and a remarkable talent for public embarrassment. She's a law enforcer with a badge, a grudge, and a weakness for bad decisions.

Tonight was supposed to end with a quiet arrest. It didn't. Again. AO3 Link 💛

[strixamans]

I GREW UP WITH D’AULAIRES’ AND IT WAS FORMATIVE AS FUCK😱😱😱

that cover… seriously, i spent so much goddamn time with that book as a child (90’s)

people who learned about greek mythology due reasons that DONT involve having read percy jackson at 12 freak me out, like what the FUCK was going on in your life that you found out that zeus turned into a pigeon to woo his wife like HOW

[strixamans]

this movie fucks

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971) dir. Sergio Martino

[strixamans]

Belladonna of Sadness (1973)

[strixamans]

boys w/fangs like that are 10/10 likely to steal ur girl

it's true

[strixamans]

I do like myself a "Hard Time" 😉

And a "Hard Time" you shall have (better late than never). Once again, shoutout to @alwaysmauria for the spark of inspiration 😘.

(nsfw)

Strix half-suppresses a smirk, as the kiss between the heroine and her attorney-slash-lover becomes increasingly handsy and heated. Then, at a soft knock on the door of the… interview room, or wherever they are, the onscreen couple’s activities halt at once. “Who's there?” “It’s me. Narcissa.” As Raul, the attorney, moves to admit his client-slash-lover’s fellow-inmate-slash-other lover, Strix steals a glance at Astarion; whose brow is furrowed in confusion, or mild dismay. “What, so Narcissa’s just wandering around the prison unattended?” he asks. “Why not?” She shrugs, raising her glass to her lips. “What do you mean, why not? It’s prison,” he retorts. And before Strix has a chance to swallow her wine and respond, he goes on, “And how are Nia and Raul unsupervised in this room together in the first place?” “Attorney-client privilege?” Strix suggests, cheekily. He shoots her a dirty look, which she returns with a pouty one of her own. “Come on, I thought you were fun…” Astarion snorts. “Of course I am,” he replies, indignant; though a smile flickers across his lips, as he picks up one of her feet and begins to massage it again. And by the time both have returned their attention fully to the screen, the process of shedding one cheap two-piece suit and two orange prison jumpsuits is already well underway. “Gods, this is just gratuitous,” Astarion giggles, while the two women onscreen remove each other’s rather skimpy prison-issued panties in a hurry. “How so?” “I just don’t see how the three of them having sex is necessary to the plot.” “They’re solidifying their alliance,” Strix replies matter-of-factly. “Sex brings people together, you know. And besides, who cares? I, for one, like watching it, either way.” “I know you do,” he says, while she makes a mischievous face back at him; sliding her other foot to his groin. The bulge she finds is unmistakable. “It seems you like watching it, too…” Astarion opens his mouth as if to protest, but says nothing. Then, flitting back to the screen, his eyes widen. “That isn’t simulated, is it?” The act in question involves a kneeling Raul’s cock in a supine Nia’s mouth, with Narcissa’s face buried between her legs. “No,” Strix snickers. “All real.” “When you said you brought a movie, I hadn’t realized you meant hardcore pornography…” “No. A film with unsimulated sex,” she corrects him. And with a kittenish grin and her wine glass in hand, she curls to an upright seat; leaning in close as she adds, conspiratorially: “Your cock getting hard doesn’t make it pornography.” Then, seductively: “Trust me, I’m a philosopher…”

[strixamans]

OC Vibes - Pinterest Games

tagged by @shandoratheexplorer @arachnomancer @alwaysmauria and @dramatiquechipmunk

To play you simply go to Pinterest, type in “your OC’s name + core,” choose 6 pictures, and tag 6 people.

Strix core

idk if anyone hasn't done this yet who wants to...

[strixamans]

So many intriguing titles for the WIP game... I'll ask about True Crime! ❤️

Hell yeah! "True Crime" is what I have planned for the penultimate chapter of the Jury Duty sequel.

Still very early stages/drafty, but here's what I have so far (just put a little more work into it this morning). I would say it contains teasers more than spoilers.

****

Astarion wakes her up shortly before three in the morning, with a tentative kiss and a mug of coffee in hand. And when she sees the thermos he’s prepared for her to take with her, her heart wrenches violently.

He applies the magical black dye to her hair, and then her eyebrows for her too, working it in with deft, loving hands. Finding other things to fuss with, when she gets dressed and applies her makeup afterward.

Their goodbyes are efficient, but not rushed. Tense. Full of barely-suppressed nerves and longing. “Have a good day at work,” she says, with a substantial helping of irony. And he chuckles, but seems at a loss for a lighthearted comment of his own. His eyes seem to beg her not to die.

Kissing is the hardest part—so difficult, it is, to keep herself steady. Stay focused. Resist the urge to cling to him, and shut all the rest of it out. But that is, after all, the whole point of this, isn’t it? And, with luck…

Ultimately, their kiss goodbye begins chaste and ends on a note of anxious passion, before they decide at once to tear their lips away. Then, he embraces her. And while he holds her to him tight, he whispers, “Good luck, little Strix. I love you.”

Oh, her warbling heart! She whispers back, “I love you, too. See you later?”

She spends the entirety of her walk to the courthouse wishing she had stayed to kiss him just a little longer.

The residential streets are of the Upper City are entirely empty in the predawn darkness, but for Strix and the lone jogger she passes traveling in the opposite direction. Street lamps glow mysteriously in the fog.

Then, approaching the Temples district, further signs of life emerge: blue-collar workers on their way to and from the unglamorous sorts of jobs that keep the city in motion, and the smell of baking bread. And when she finally reaches the courthouse at around four in the morning, it’s to find a small queue already forming outside the grand doors. A few people equipped with pillows and sleeping bags appear to have spent the whole night there.

Fucking weirdos. As far as recreational activities go, Strix has gotten herself up at this hour to go birding before—but this, in her opinion, is just ridiculous. To be fair, several of them are wearing press badges.

Dreading the hours of waiting ahead, she plops her ass down on the sidewalk at the end of the line. More and more people trickle in as the sun rises, accumulating against the side of the courthouse. Meanwhile, Strix sips her coffee and keeps herself occupied with The Flowers of Evil, occasionally getting up to stretch and shake out her legs. Best to stay limber.

Increasingly, the growing throng buzzes with anticipatory chatter; and by seven o’clock, several camera crews have joined the fray. Strix keeps her head down, avoiding them. And when the courthouse doors open at eight o’clock sharp, with a guard shouting instructions to the crowd gathered, she begins shuffling in behind the most ambitious of the spectators-to-be; removing her jacket as she approaches the security checkpoint, to reveal her {SILLY TRUE CRIME PODCAST} t-shirt.

Objectively, it’s a stupid, reckless fucking plan. Not to anyone’s discredit—they’re simply desperate. Coming up with something better on this sort of time frame would have been a gods-damned miracle. And as she places her bag and jacket in a tray upon the conveyor belt feeding the x-ray machine, Strix thinks about how she’s risked her life—and a very long prison sentence—for money before, and for ideology; but, until recently, she had never done so for love. Romantic love—for love of another person.

She never would have thought of herself as someone who might die for love, but life does indeed have a way of surprising you. It certainly isn’t the first example of her own behavior in this very courthouse that she would have been surprised to hear about several years ago.

Still, she would much rather not die—or go to prison, for that matter. And while it is indeed a stupid, reckless fucking plan, she wouldn’t necessarily call it suicidal, either.

It could work. It might. And, regardless of the outcome, one thing is for certain: it’s going to be a legendary day in court.

[strixamans]

I'm curious about "Pas Deux" 👀

Answered here! Feel free to pick another, if you like

[strixamans]

"The Leash" and "Pas de Deux" 🖤

"Pas de Deux" has been answered here!

"The Leash" will be the first of three(?) chapters in The Hood and the Glove, an upcoming piece in my "Sketches of Ascension" series with that will have a bit of a predatory bird/falconry theme. Here's a snippet:

In short order, the owl is a woman again, occupying the window frame with her back resting against one side of it and her feet tucked into the opposite bottom corner, legs neatly folded, in such a way as to resemble at once a classical vampire temptress and a chintzy illustration of the maiden Selûne, upon a crescent moon—although the latter of those is seldom depicted fully nude, in stark contrast with the woman before him. “You aren’t going to invite me in?” she asks. Clearly pleased with herself—and with the way her loose waves of blonde hair only half-cover her breasts. Rubbing it in his face, the pernicious beauty of her… Astarion rolls his eyes. “You don’t need an invitation, darling. You live here.” “But it isn’t my bedroom.” “Would that it were otherwise,” he mutters, though she ignores it entirely. “Do you want me to come in?” Her gaze is every bit as unyielding in her usual form as in her strigiform. And for a moment, they just look at each other: she smug, and he, glowering. Then Astarion puts on a simpering smile, and spreads his arms out wide. “By all means,” he replies. “Please, my dear. Come in!” Of course, the sarcasm in his voice belies how very much he does want her to come in—that he has, in fact, been waiting for her all night. In vain, he had thought. Her bare feet drop to the floor without a sound. And Astarion wills his eyes affixed to her face as she slinks towards him, watching the hypnotic motion of her breasts, and of her hips, only in the periphery of his vision. The soft ripple of muscle in her thighs as she approaches, in her stalking gait. The coveted prize between them… She alights upon the edge of the bed, to sit with her perfect ass mere inches from his feet, while Astarion shifts to rest his head upon his folded hands, lounging ever so casually. And despite the smug look on her pretty face, and the unconscionable rudeness of her entrance, he finds it difficult to be cross with her. There’s a liveliness in her eyes that he hasn’t seen for some time. In her new eyes… Eyes that he’s still getting used to, himself. Her new eyes, eyes like his own. “I didn’t know you could take the form of an owl,” he says; adding, “Although I’m not surprised.” While not especially common, as far as he’s aware, it is by no means unheard of for a vampire. And if ever there were a vampire suited to that particular ability, it is surely her. “Neither did I, before tonight. It’s the first time I’ve tried.” Astarion can hear the touch of pride in her voice, and a similar feeling stirs in him, in kind. “Impressive,” he replies. And when he feels himself starting to smile, he doesn’t hold it in. It is a genuinely impressive feat, for a tender fledgling such as her. For all that she has thus far made a point of bristling at it, she is rather good at being a vampire, it turns out. As he’s sure the chambermaid summarily devoured on the second day of his darling bride’s homecoming would readily attest, were the poor, entirely deceased woman capable of attesting to anything at all. So much for that hunger strike… “Do you like it?” he goes on. “I do.” As she speaks, her little smile grows. “How far did you fly?” “Not far.” Her words are sparse. But as he watches her mind flit to the memory of flight, Astarion feels a whisper running up the cord: her joy in the night air, coasting unseen above the quiet Upper City. Buoyant on her long, silent wings… “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”

[strixamans]

for the wip game: Strix eats the butler??? I have so many questions

hehe you are the second person who asked for this one: answered here. Feel free to pick another one, if you like!