Wild Houseplant

Hello! :D Call me Plant, if you like (she/her). Noisy, excitable autistic adhd'er who posts abt Dragon Age: Origins fics (including mine: wild_houseplant on Ao3). SHOW ME YOUR OCs, I LOVE THEM!. 18+ stuff features here. Sing out if you need anything; I'll just be here snacking. :) :) Awesome pfp + background by badartxd and m-m-m-myysurana  🤩🤩🤩

[heniareth]

Wip Whenever

And it's not even a wip, just a sketch. But here! I haven't been able to write this week and likely won't, so have instead a drawing of modern AU Astala and Zevran. They're watching a movie on Astala's crappy computer. Zevran probably chose it, judging by their expressions. I have no idea what kind of movies he could like that could warrant those expressions. Suggestions are welcome XD

Tagged by the one and only @siriskulksnerding (thank you, friend ^^)! I'm gonna tag you right back and @oxygenforthewicked @badartxd @wild-houseplant @icylook and @bumblerhizal if you have anything you'd like to share ^^ Have a lovely week!

[cityandking]

oc asks: not-so-nice edition

alone: How does your OC deal with loneliness? Have they ever been completely alone before? How do they act when there's no one around to see them?

betrayal: Has your OC ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust? Has your OC ever betrayed someone who trusted them?

bound: Has your OC ever been imprisoned or captured? What happened? How did they get out? Did the experience leave any scars?

break: What would cause your OC to break down completely? What do they look like when that happens? Has anyone ever seen them at their lowest?

desire: What's one thing your OC wants more than anything in the world? Are they open with that desire? Why or why not? What would they do to fulfill it?

failure: What's your OC's greatest failure? Have they been able to move past it? Does anyone else know about it?

fear: What is your OC's greatest fear? What do they do when confronted with it? Are they open with their fear, or do they hide it away?

future: What's the worst possible future for your OC? Are they taking steps to avoid that outcome? Are they even aware it's a possibility?

ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?

guilt: What is your OC guilty about? How do they handle their guilt? Do they try to avoid guilt, or do they accept it?

hate: What does your OC hate? Why? How do they act towards the object of their hatred?

heartbreak: Have they ever had a relationship that ended badly? Experienced some other kind of heartbreak? What happened?

hide: What does your OC hide? Why do they hide it?

hunt: Who or what is your OC hunted by? A person, a feeling, a past mistake? Is your OC able to let their guard down, or are they constantly alert?

mask: Does your OC wear a mask, literally or figuratively? What goes on beneath it? Is there anyone in their life who gets to see who they are under the mask?

midnight: What keeps your OC up at night? Do they have nightmares? Fears? Anxieties? What do they do in the small hours of the morning when they should be sleeping?

mistake: What's the worst mistake your OC ever made? What led to them making it? Have they been able to fix it? How have they moved on?

monster: Is your OC monstrous in any way? Is there something that makes them monstrous? Are they aware of their own monstrosity? Do they accept it or reject it?

nightmare: What does your OC have nightmares about? How do they deal with their nightmares? Do they tell people, or keep it to themself?

pain: What's the worst pain your OC has ever felt? Do they have a high pain tolerance?

secret: What's one secret your OC never wants anyone to know about them?

skin: How comfortable is your OC in their skin? Do they grapple with anything that lives inside them—a beast, a curse, a failure, a monster? How do they face the smallest, weakest, most horrible version of themself? Are they able to acknowledge it at all?

torture: Has your OC ever been tortured? Would your OC ever torture someone else?

wound: How does your OC handle being wounded? Are their wounds mostly physical? Mental? Emotional? What's the worst wound your OC has ever experienced?

[weltenwellen]

June Jordan, from "Intifada Incantation: Poem #8 for b.b.L.", Directed by Desire: The Complete Poems of June Jordan

[snottiesnot]

Started as a practice/warmup doodle and now look at them 🥺

(yes, the Halsin is mirrored)

[itspileofgoodthings]

I know that Peter’s Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy technically has flaws but also….it doesn’t. It’s perfect.

[byjoveimbeinghumble]

‘Are these magic cloaks?’ asked Pippin, looking at them. with wonder.

‘I do not know what you mean by that,’ answered the leader of the Elves. ‘They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are Elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.”

- Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 8: Farewell to Lorien

This is how I think of Jackson’s movies. Yes, there are serious flaws - Gandalf’s de-powering, Gimli as comic relief, and Faramir, namely - but come on.

Remember when the guys making their chain mail invented a new method for quickly producing large amounts of it by hand? Remember Miranda Otto walking down the street, practicing sword positions? The guys who forged all of the swords - for leads and for extras? The men and women riders who volunteered to be riders of Rohan? The costume designers who designed the inside of Theoden’s armor (which no one would ever see) so beautifully that Bernard Hill said he felt like a king? The friendships between the cast, and their size doubles, and the stuntmen?

When they made that movie, they put all that they loved into all that they made.

[melusinemuse]

#just hundreds of people who went ‘sure let me try this’ #and they made something breathtaking #and then they made it 12 more times in different sizes ( @byjoveimbeinghumble​ )

[phoxxent]

Wait tell me more about that chainmail thing

[byjoveimbeinghumble]

“Kaynemaile has worked tirelessly to perfect the material science behind beautiful architectural mesh, collaborating with architects and designers on projects that embolden urban environments with positive buildings. The company’s patented polycarbonate mesh, inspired by 2,000-year-old medieval chainmail, was initially created for the armor and weapons seen in the The Lord of The Rings movie trilogy and is now used on major architectural projects around the world.

“The film’s art director and Kaynemaile’s founder Kayne Horsham worked with his team to construct each garment from plastic plumbing tubes, coating them in pure silver. Once filming wrapped, Horsham dedicated himself to creating a change to the liquid state assembly process to mass produce the polycarbonate chainmail for architectural applications — products that were light, but strong enough to protect the interior or exterior of a building. Now an industry-leading manufacturer, Kaynemaile produces mesh for everything from small interior screens to large scale exterior façades. Their mesh is easy to install and can be custom created for specialized applications.”

https://architizer.com/blog/practice/materials/kaynemaile-mesh-facade-systems/

How “Lord of the Rings” Chainmail Was Transformed Into an Innovative Architectural Mesh - Architizer Journal

Kaynemaile's patented mesh façade systems are incredibly lightweight and easy to install while bringing a bold look to any scale building.

[byjoveimbeinghumble]

YOU GUYS

[ohifonlyx33]

they took forced perspective and scaled sets to a new level by adding moving set pieces to create the illusion that the hobbits and dwarves were much smaller than everyone else even when the camera moved.

every scene you see in the 11+ hours of glory that is the LOTR masterpiece is most like ridiculously elaborate or expensive–from model towers to the all-new motion capture technology used for gollum to the costumes and sets to the aerial on location shots of mother-fracking new zealand and the big impressive battle scenes and horse charges.

but then the story and the screenplay too–there is just SO much lore that is there in the background lurking if you want to look for it, yet it still remains simplified for the average viewer. Crazy impressive feat.

And the acting is heartfelt and real and makes you love the characters.

ALSO DON’T GET ME STARTED ON FREAKING HOWARD SHORE AND HIS 100+ HEARTSHATTERINGLY BEAUTIFUL LIETMOTIFS AND BRILLIANT SUBTLE VARIATIONS IN THE FLIPPING 13 HOUR SOUNDTRACK. AND ENYA SINGING IN REAL ELVISH.

[magentasnail]

served my duty as an autistic artist and made a bunch of autism creature reaction images

[astarions-veins]

HELP I'M TRYING TO LUST IN HEALTHY AND NORMAL WAYS BUT I AM AN ICU NURSE AND HIS ARMS ARE IV LANDING STRIPS AND I AM STRICKEN WITH A NEAR UNCONTROLLABLE NEED TO RIDDLE HIM WITH 14 GAUGE LINES

[toyota-supra]

What [car] would you build a time machine out of?

an old VW Beetle because it wouldn't look out of place literally anywhere

[aokozaki]

Lancelot: Egad sire! Look at that. King Arthur: Hm, rare to see a VW Beetle this far north. Not impossible, mind.

[unbearable-lightness-of-ink]

hey I want to see something

take this quiz (https://dlcincluded.github.io/MQ/) and then tell me about your score.

if you're autistic plus another overlapping type of neurodivergent, choose the autistic option. self diagnoses are valid.

choose other neurodivergent if you are neurodivergent but not autistic. again, self diagnoses are valid.

What's your score and are you autistic?

Score above 200 (I'm autistic)

Score above 200 (I'm neurodivergent but not autistic)

Score above 200 (I'm neurotypical)

Score from 135 to 200 (I'm autistic)

Score from 135 to 200 (I'm neurodivergent but not autistic)

Score from 135 to 200 (I'm neurotypical)

Score from 75 to 135 (I'm autistic)

Score from 75 to 135 (I'm neurodivergent but not autistic)

Score from 75 to 135 (I'm neurotypical)

Score below 75 (I'm autistic)

Score below 75 (I'm neurodivergent but not autistic)

Score below 75 (I'm neurotypical)

Voting ended onAug 15, 2023

check out the monotropism theory of autism (https://monotropism.org/)

[aubergion]

BTW if anyone else is curious about the skew on these bins:

Based on the paper, the average score for an allistic person is 3.03 (sd 0.578) and the average score for an autistic person is 4.07 (sd 0.347). Adding ADHD raises average scores by about 0.56 for allistic people but only by 0.13 for autistic people.

As this is a 47 question quiz scored from 1 to 5, that means:

An allistic person can expect to score between 86 and 199

Someone with ADHD but not autism can expect to score between 107 and 229

An autistic person without ADHD can expect to score between 153 and 230

Someone with the double combo has got an expected score between 150 and 235

With all that in mind, it's no wonder that barely anyone scores below 75 - that's unusual even for a neurotypical person! The lowest possible score is a 47. It's also not a surprise that at a cutoff of 135, the autistic population virtually vanishes - that is almost three full standard deviations below the mean, so we only expect to see 0.3% of autistic people there! Same with the cutoff at 200: at 2 standard deviations above the mean, only 5% of allistic+no ADHD people are expected to be there - given that 13.8% of respondents list themselves as neurotypical, 0.8% is almost right on the money (we would expect 0.7%). Meanwhile, 135-200 captures the mean for all three population groups (145 - neither ADHD nor autism; 170 - ADHD; 191 - autism; 197 - autism + ADHD), so it's no surprise that group is winning. As to why more quiz-takers are neurodivergent than not: a) responder bias b) we are on the hyperfixation site.

TLDR: The paper's holding up! Check it out here: https://osf.io/g4kc9

[tashaneva]

journal comics

#6 august

[redemption-revenge]

irish petnames you all deserve to know

maoinín » Little treasure, darling

meanmarc » Object of desire; favourite, darling.

leannán » Darling, sweetheart; favourite

rúnach » Darling, sweetheart

cograch » Confidant; sweetheart

ainsín » Darling

treiteall » Favourite, pet (also means warrior lol)

ansacht » Love; loved one

grianán » Loved one, darling

muirnín » Beloved, sweetheart

[theheartmold]

This might be a controversial post but I’m going to say it anyways.

One thing that absolutely turns me off from reading Dragon Age fanfiction where Zevran is the romance is the way that people write Zevran. I think that a lot of people see him flirting with the Warden right off the bat and fail to recognize that, no, actually, he isn’t falling in love with them at first sight. It’s a defense mechanism and a hope that you’ll find him endearing enough to keep him alive.

Zevran is rarely disapproving of the Warden, but that doesn’t mean he’s easy to get to know. He’s not easy at all, in fact. Once the Warden spends a considerable amount of time talking to and discovering more about Zevran’s past, a lot of the behaviors aren’t as simple as they appear on the surface. He talks about being sold to the Crows and the things he was expected to do in service to them, and suddenly his “flirtatious” attitude very quickly appears more like a hypersexual trauma response that he used in an attempt to convince the Warden that he was worthy of not killing. Good enough at something to keep him around.

It’s sad, really! I struggle to enjoy a lot of peoples’ interpretations of Zevran as this flirtatious, sexual fantasy where he’s actually one of the healthiest and respectful (if not the MOST) romances in the game. Zevran is understanding, nonjudgmental, and respects the boundaries of the Warden in a way one doesn’t often see represented. Just my thoughts.

I’ll also add that there is a level of fetishization that comes with his character being racialized (as he is not white!) but that would be better be discussed by someone with more expertise than I. It just didn’t deserve to go without mention or in the tags.

[theheartmold]

(via @apostate-chic)

This is exactly what I was getting at… it’s all part of a survivalist transaction so that you don’t kill him. (Or maybe you’ll get annoyed enough and you will!)

Non-sexual intimacy with Zevran is what I live for (and I know that a lot of my asexual friends or sex-repulsed friends were grateful for the opportunity of a romance where that wasn’t necessary)! I just think that the way a lot of people characterize him in their heads or write him in their headcanons, fanfic, depict him in art etc. is indicative of a broader issue.

[theheartmold]

#yes yes all of this#and i'm telling y'all right now that race plays a big part in this#I have come across various fics and depictions of him that whittle him down into 'oh look at this sex-crazed brown man'#and people find it endearing#the way some people perceive him would be SO different if he was white coded#would be nice if people stopped flattening his character and being racist#but you know#zevran#he deserves better (via @elvhendreamer) YOU. You get it. You have broken down my issues with Zevran's depiction into some delightful little sentences. It is a phenomenon that seems to plague Zevran depictions everywhere where people buy into the racialized sex-fiend (and lets not yet get into the dynamics of how that might come across in a queer relationship, too).

And people find it endearing! And they don't read into the context at all! Even if they're diehard Zev fans who romance him every single time 10/10 stars baby boy. Like... tell me you don't critically think about your fave without telling me that you don't critically think about your fave.

(Because lets be real if he was white-coded, the girlies would be devouring every little bit of dialogue to uncover the secrets of his very traumatic arc. Instead of like... taking him at face value and aggressively sexualizing him).

[theheartmold]

reblogging this again

[wild-houseplant]

I completely agree, and in the same vein, I sometimes run into Zevran being used to plug the gap (so to speak :P ) with the Warden until a more ‘serious’ (as though you could get more serious than Mr. Proposes-Once-You’ve-Dropped-The-L-Bomb) relationship offers itself with Alistair/Leliana/Morrigan, and he is then portrayed as not giving a single shit when he’s dropped in favour of one of those three when one of them shows a keen enough interest in the Warden. And I mean, yes, Zevran does often wear a veneer of ‘easy come, easy go.’ It makes perfect sense that he does have one. He has been abhorrently mistreated, and is certain that any good thing he has in life will be taken away from him-- often violently-- and why would he think otherwise when that’s all that has ever happened? Rinna. His mother’s gloves. His own autonomy. It’s very, very easy to think he’s hardened to the point that he doesn’t give a shit any more, if you take some of his responses at face value. What I find these people have missed is that Zevran only really conceals mild to moderate disapproval of the Warden with any true plausibility. He’s good at that, because, as the circumstances of his survival demand, he’s great at suppressing his own opinion of his leader/enslaver’s actions until the point where his own morals oblige him to speak out (e.g the mages, the Dalish). You might not even notice that he’s quietly judging you until the dialogue finishes and you catch that Zevran disapproves -5.

What Zevran’s not good at hiding is his own personal attachment. Take a look at the item description for his belt, mixed metal rounds. Listen to how he talks about the gloves belonging to the mother he never met, and watch how he throws on the gifted pair no matter the stats of his currently- equipped pair. The way he admits that, in spite of all the training he had been put through, he still gets attached to people and things. You can even hear it when you break it off with him if you have more than the bare minimum approval with him. He tries so hard not to be hurt, but he absolutely is. If you get to the very very high approval and dump him, he’s so shattered that he leaves the group. Not even Alistair, emotional wellspring extraordinaire that he is, will do that.

And I feel like indulging that portrayal of Zevran as this thoroughly blasé individual is missing the component of his personality that is largely the vehicle for him even being a part of the Warden’s story. Had his Crow training stomped the sentimental part of him dead, he would never have taken the Grey Warden contract. He probably would still have been in Antiva, clawing his way to the top with Rinna (because she probably wouldn’t have been killed had he never given much of a shit about her) and Taliesen without too much bother. Zevran’s tendency to cling onto things that mean a lot to him, and his semi-obvious inability to divorce himself from this habit, make him who he is. You are missing out on the entire pivot point of his character arc if you write him off as someone who is content with being thrown aside after being used as a fill-in for a more ‘stable’ relationship.

[wesslesprout]

Wynne being named after Langwynne in Bannorn and Anders from the Anderfells has me emotional in a certain sort of way because these mages are taken away so young, given a name of a place they can never remember, a home they never had and its almost cruel mocking that their identity is taken from them and then given back as their most identifiable feature.

[tastefullyoffensive]

[rlainarin]

/BURSTS THROUGH YOUR WALL LIKE THE KOOL AID MAN/ SIR I GOT QUESTIONS 1, 3, 13 for Angharad and Zevvo my beloveds

9 and 18 for Dianthe and Fenris please and thank! Also biting you

AUGH am bitten

ANGHARAD AND ZEVVO

Who first brought up the option of marriage? Was it an easy topic?

ok ok brought up is a funny one here because they do a really good job getting engaged without actually explicitly saying it. Zev does his whole earring song and dance, Angharad counters with a gift of a bracer which is very dwarf-engagement-coded

and so the first person who actually brings up that they're getting married is Oghren. taking the shit out of the whole idea of marriage and oh oopsydoodle guess we need to actually communicate now. damn it and Leli just let us out of the "TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS" cupboard

Show us their engagement and/or wedding rings!

AUGH ok so. I had a ring that I was going to use with my cosplay for The Earring but it broke. just snapped in two. thankfully the boyf does jewelry so it can and will be fixed but at this exact moment it's not in a photographable state. ANYWAY it's a wreath of embossed gold roses.

the engagement bracer is made by Wade and it's embossed dragon leather with embroidery patterns copying the Dalish Gloves. and it has a hidden knife pocket of COURSE.

Show us their outfits!

ok ok I may come in later and add drawings but I wanna make sure I don't forget this ask and leave it languishing

so they get married with about twelve hours of notice right after the Battle of Denerim at the big party, which makes the outfits kind of thrown together. Leli does her best with giving the grooms flower crowns but fundamentally I think both of them have borrowed a nice coat off a short, butch human noblewoman and otherwise they're just wearing what's clear and intact.

And there's finally a proper occasion for Zevran to wear his nice Antivan leather boots. :)

DIANTHE AND FENRIS

Show us a mood/stimboard of their wedding’s general aesthetic.

Oh I've got better than a moodboard, I've got a whole video clip of their wedding aesthetic!

Did anyone oppose the marriage? Did they speak then, or did they just forever hold their peace?

Running w/ main canon where Dianthe is an Amell (Not That Onetm)and not a Hawke, yeah her family was pretty against it! She was supposed to marry wealthy, someone who would support the family and protect her as an apostate.

But when they flee Kirkwall, Fenris leaves a note that they should take over the old mansion by way of a dowry, and that goes a long way towards smoothing it over.

[merrybandofmurderers]

i love the lore that donnic plays cards with fenris not least of which becuz it brings me joy to try to conceive of how this happened. imagine fenris is sick of varric making jokes about him brooding in his corpse-filled mansion so he decides to host card games becuz that is a normal thing for sociable free people to do. but he needs to show varric that he knows more than just hawke's circle and he remembers that aveline got married to that one guard and figures that'll suffice. so he tracks donnic down at a bar or his place of work and approaches him in his perfunctory way and says i am hosting cards this evening, you should come, if you would like. and donnic only vaguely knows this man as someone his wife runs around committing crimes with in her free time and he thinks it's nice fenris is reaching out so he says sure where do you live. and this elf with a foreign accent carrying a sword as long as he is tall tells him he lives in the abandoned mansion in hightown. and donnic is just like,, okay i'll see you there then. fenris just says you shall and leaves. and then donnic gets there and the other players are varric who is a renowned author and criminal and the darktown healer who (from his wife's complaints) is supposed to be at odds with fenris. and this is just his life now

[merrybandofmurderers]

the reason aveline doesn't know about this is becuz since fenris is supposed to be her friend/occasional mercenary co-worker, donnic assumes she knows and when she doesn't ask about it, he assumes she's just not interested so he doesnt bring it up

[novemberenby]

Mí Bród sona daoibh! // Happy Pride Month!

[ID: ten images of pride flags with the word ‘bród’ (pride) and heart emojis in the flag’s colours written on top. Pride flags are: rainbow, queer chevron, orange and pink lesbian, @gayflagblog’s gay man, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, nonbinary, asexual and aromantic. End ID.]

[ID as Gaeilge: deich pictiúir faoi bratach bród agus an focail ‘bród’ agus emoji croí sa dathanna seo. Is é bogha báistí, aiteach, leispiach oráiste agus bándearg, aerach ó @gayflagblog, déghnéasach, painghnéasach , trasinscneach, neamh-dhénártha, éighnéasach agus gan-rómáns na bratach bród.]