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solitaryandwandering · 10 months

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Top Nine Favorite TV Series

I was tagged by the incomparable @wen-kexing-apologist to list nine of my favorite shows, thank youu!! <3 This is a... daunting task. I'll do my best.

They've already listed/mentioned a number of shows in their own post I would include in mine (Avatar: The Last Airbender; I Told Sunset About You; 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us) so I will not be including those, to my absolute despair!! I'm only including stuff I've 100% completed, so that automatically excludes stuff like Orphan Black, Penny Dreadful, Derry Girls, Barry, or Russian Doll.

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

[ID: TV poster. Background is busy with sketches of an urban sprawl, with buildings and flying ships clashing with natural elements. Three teenage girls flail with maniacal glee in the foreground. On the right is the tallest of them all, glasses perched on her head and wearing an astronaut's suit with a jet pack. On the left, a girl in an orange jumpsuit is riding a flying carpet. In the center is a short girl with a round head, clutching animation paper in her hand. She is being jettisoned by a propeller around her waist.]

It took me forever to discern what was happening in that poster, my god.

Anyway, this show!!! Exactly what I needed at the time I watched it. So full of joy and creativity with no cynicism or guile to be seen. Pure, unfettered fun but still delivered moving characters and story. It's literally about three weird teenage girls who decide to start an animation club at their high school. Doesn't sound like much but is absolutely PASSIONATE in every sense of the word, in every way you could possibly apply it practically in its creation. It's so obvious everyone had fun making this little show. This is the kind of art that makes you hug yourself with tears of happiness. Or is that just something I do?

Give me more stories about weird girls being fucking bizarre!!! I need it!!!

Tldr; Hilarious, full of heart, reminded me why I love art, why I love stories, and what I love about life. An absolute 10/10 for me.

Batman: The Animated Series

[ID: TV poster. Batman is silhouetted against a black background, drawing his cape up around his body and staring at the viewer through narrow white slits in his bat-like mask. Batman's head is backlit by a bright red sun.]

Oh, you think I'm just adding this for pure nostalgia? WRONG. B:TAS absolutely stands up to scrutiny even without nostalgia glasses. I rewatched this relatively recently and was completely blown away by the complexity in its storytelling and characterization. Yes, I was obsessed with this show (and the rest of the DCAU) as a kid, but as an adult I can find very few flaws. B:TAS may represent one of my first forays into noir, which is potentially my favorite genre across all art-forms. It certainly represents one of the first times I fell in love with a superhero story.

Tldr; Kevin Conroy IS the best Batman. 10/10

Breaking Bad

[ID: Photo of four major characters from Breaking Bad. From left to right: Gus Fring, a Chilean man wearing round spectacles and a collared shirt with tie; Jesse Pinkman, a white man in his mid-twenties wearing a black T-shirt; Walter White, a bald white man with a full mustache and extended goatee, wearing large glasses; Mike Ehrmantraut, a bald white man with a bulbous nose. All four look into the camera with expressions of tired determination.]

Ah yes, the show that seems to make it to every "favorite shows" list made by everyone else in the universe. I really do love it though; it has incredible, complex, morally-gray characters, a gripping plot and story, phenomenal thematic development, GORGEOUS cinematography and production design, and bonkers acting. It really deserves all its accolades and praise. Add to that a disabled character played by a disabled actor and you've got me singing your praises all the way to the grave!

Tdlr; Virulent toxic masculinity LOSES and we all cheer! It leaves lasting trauma and devastation in its wake and we all scream in agonized recognition! 10/10 fried chickens

Over the Garden Wall

[ID: TV poster. Two young boys are wandering in a wooded area, approaching a darkened alcove of trees and vines. The taller of the two is wearing a red conical hat and blue cape with golden buttons. He looks into the dark woods with worry. A shorter boy scampers excitedly ahead, balancing an upside-down silver teakettle atop his head and hoisting a large green frog under his arm. A bluebird flies at their side.]

My best friend and I watch this show together every year. I am such a sucker for good sibling stories and this one takes the cake. The way Wirt and Greg love each other is heartbreakingly realistic, and to set the growth of their relationship against a confusing and bizarre backdrop is so satisfying. And what a backdrop! I loved fairytales as a kid and this show scratches that itch. Besides the great little vignettes what brings me back to this story again and again is the attention to nuanced relationship development between ALL characters. Wirt's character growth hinges on learning how not to inflict loneliness on himself, to instead accept love and care from others, even those he considers too good for him. Me likey! Great music and one of the best-designed monsters/villains I've seen in any children's animated show, and you've won me over.

Tldr; Goofy kids, goofy problems. Potatoes and molasses. 10/10, would be spooked again

Bad Buddy

[ID: TV poster. Two young college-aged men are standing close together in a yellow-lit room in front of a window. The man on the left stands with his arms wrapped around the waist of the other man, looking fondly into his eyes. The man on the right looks worried, one finger over his lips as he presses his hand against the other man's mouth.]

I was hesitant to start watching BL. Nothing about the genre appealed to me beyond the romance and happy endings. But then KinnPorsche lured me in with promises of attempts not to shy away from queerness. As I was in the midst of watching that I decided to check out this show as it had been trending on Tumblr with one person I follow rabidly enthused about it. Looked super fun (and was a Shakespeare adaptation!) and free on YouTube, so I took a peek... and the rest is history. I credit this show for keeping me around. I was SHOCKED at how queer-positive and forward-thinking it was and excited to learn of P'Aof's existence. BL was being created by IRL gay people?! And they're conscious of what they're making?! Consider me seated! This show became the first BL I ever completed and I am so glad it did. This fandom is the first where I've felt relatively safe to express myself and has opened me up to so many other like-minded people, willing to watch fun stuff but also critique it in the same breath. I'm so glad a show as good (if imperfect) as this one brought me here.

Tldr; Excellent Shakespeare adaptations are my catnip. Product placements didn't scare me away so you KNOW it's charming. An ending so perfect it made me tear up. Fandom so lovely it made me stay. 9/10 warm and fuzzies

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

[ID: TV poster. Two characters from the show face off against each other. On the left is a cat-like humanoid, Catra, with thick brown hair and different colored eyes: blue and yellow. Her right arm is raised in a defensive stance against the girl on the right, Adora, blonde with a large golden headdress. Her golden gauntlet clashes with Catra's arm, creating a bright burst of light.]

I just recently watched Nimona (WONDERFUL) so felt like I should shout out this show. In making this list I've further realized just how much I attach to animated shows I needed to see as a kid. She-Ra kinda takes the cake in that aspect. Multi-dimensionally queer with badass characters defying gender and relational conventions?! Fun, cheesy action with real stakes?! Anti-colonialist messaging?! Hell yeah. But most of all, this show has one of my favorite fictional characters of all time in Catra. ND Stevenson seems to have a knack for writing characters my inner child relates way too much to. Abused, neglected, shunned, bulled, traumatized kid who is visibly and invisibly different to those around her. Lights up as soon as anyone seems to respect her talents and see her potential, only to be manipulated. To crash and burn and grapple with self-hatred as a consequence. THEN she finds love in people who see her for who she is, know what she's done, and give her a chance to do better! Her character arc is so important to me. Not only that, but the ending kiss/confession between her and Adora is INCREDIBLE both as a narrative culmination and as a production win. Talk about a hard-fought queer kiss.

Tldr; Important and powerful. Good queer fun. TERRIBLE theme song. 9/10

Black Sails

[ID: TV poster. Tagline above the title reads "WAR AGAINST THE WORLD". A bald white man with soot and blood streaked across his face stands in the foreground. He is wearing an outfit typical of a pirate, holding a cutlass in his right hand. He is ankle-deep in water. He looks over his shoulder; a fleet of ships burn in the background. A large, tattered Union Jack waves behind the man's head. He is Captain Flint.]

Whenever someone asks me what my favorite show is, this is the one that pops into mind. It has EVERYTHING. Complicated, at-times intensely unlikable protagonists, queerness out the ears, great costuming, pathos, meta-upon-meta commentary on itself, the source material Treasure Island, the modern and historical world it's set in and the concept of fiction itself, EVERYTHING. You want strong themes? This show has THEMES. It's hard to find a show about rebellion or anarchy that ACTUALLY feels revolutionary. I think this show is it. This came out around the same time Game of Thrones was big so caved to some pressure in the first season to make itself appeal to a similar audience (thanks Michael Bay) but wow did they make that season pay off in a big way in retrospect. It only gets better, more assured in itself as it goes on.

Tldr; A story about stories. Straight-baited in season one, off-the-rails queer in seasons two to four. Madi deserved better. Anne Bonny: childhood hero to queer crank on TV! Me: in love. 9/10

Gravity Falls

[ID: TV poster. Three people set forth on an expedition through the dark woods. Leading the pack is Dipper, a young boy wearing a white and blue cap with a blue pine tree on the front. He is reading an old hardback tome with a gold hand on the front with the number "3" on the palm. Behind him is his twin sister, Mabel. She is grinning at the viewer, showing off her braces and harpoon gun. Her sweatshirt bright pink with a multi-colored shooting star on its front. Bringing up the rear is their Grunkle Stan, a grumpy old man wearing a red fez with a golden fish eating a smaller fish. He holds aloft a gas lantern. Behind them all is the Mystery Shack, with a triangular window lit by a yellow glow and a weather vane in the shape of a question mark. In the lower left-hand corner is a bearded gnome looking at the viewer, holding a finger in front of his open mouth.]

Oh, you think I'm just including for nostalgia reasons? CORRECT. But I do think this show is great, regardless. I think it's easy to tell at this point that I really enjoy speculative fiction. This show fires on all cylinders in that respect, hitting up the supernatural, science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternate history, and adding a splash of the gothic just for me. Add in there great familial and sibling dynamics, fun animation and a GREAT villain... that's my jam! This is the show that my best friend and I watched together and bonded over as freshmen in college. They got Mabel's sweater and I got Dipper's cap; this piece of personal history makes the show more special to me.

Tldr; Send kids to the woods and let them figure it out. Makes for some great television. Great friendships, too. 9/10 lumberjacks

Fleabag

[ID: TV poster. A white woman with short, curly brown hair and a large nose poses in a pastiche of a Christian saint. The poster itself is stylized like a Renaissance-era painting or religious effigy. A halo encircles her head as she stares off in the distance. In her hand, the woman holds a guinea pig emanating a soft glow.]

A masterclass in creating a miniseries which feels expansive and fully-contained. Might be the culmination of many things I've touched on in this list. Weird, off-putting protagonists/women, darker storylines with plenty of comedic heft, themes of grief, self-hatred, loneliness and hope, complicated sibling/familial relationships, and mental illness. Who knew? (Me.) Above all else, I love stories about love. This show manages to complicate the conversation about love - self-love, love as obligation, love as devotion, love as obsession, love as healing - in eternally satisfying ways.

Tldr; It'll pass. 9/10

#it's me #tag game #favorite shows #did not expect so many cartoons lol

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your-nanas-house · 2 years

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Hello!!! Long time no see, how are you doing good I hope. I would like to request a Jeremiah fic it can be smut or fluff I don't really care. I have been on a Jeremiah kick lately. Lol. I feel like I have read about every Jeremiah fic on Tumblr lol. Any way bye, and have a nice rest of your day!!!😊

Hii!! Thank you, have a nice rest of your day too! Hope you like the next part of the series 😌

Can't stop thinking

Pairing: professor!Jeremiah Valeska X student!Reader

Warnings: mention of stalking, handjob, smut, description, underwear

Words: 872

Summary: Jeremiah can't stop thinking at his student.

Note: Sorry for the mistakes and the English. This is another part of the series 'His student'.

The images of Y/n's undressed body had not yet left Jeremiah's mind as he found himself the same evening in his bed with his hand hidden in his pajama pants while groaning her name arching his back imagining to be in her company.

He did not know how he had managed to look her in the eyes the next day but he did and it did not cause him embarrassment rather only arousal that was thankfully hidden by the desk; he was more distracted than usual and that was not good since he still had to correct all the projects that the class had handed him, he did manage but stopped when the name 'Y/n Y/l/n' appeared, a soft sigh escaped his lips while he thought back to her, closing his eyes losing himself again.

Y/n's shirt ended up on the floor too and Jeremiah now had his obsession in underwear in the foreground, black lace panties and a push-up bra of the same color and material, the man's hazel eyes couldn't move simply daydreaming of being able to touch and see her with even less but his dream was interrupted when he heard the roommate's voice again "so? what do you think you're doing?" there was a shrug while Y/n bent down to pick up something showing her ass right in Jeremiah's direction "Didn't you have something to do, a meeting with your boyfriend Brandon?" Y/n's y/e/c gaze met that of her roommate who huffed remembering it complaining until she was out of the room leaving Y/n and Jeremiah alone in the student dormitory, the student was still distracted and the young man took that moment to try to escape freezing as soon as his hand was on the doorknob and he heard her voice "Are you leaving so soon, professor?" the flushed face of Jeremiah turned slowly to see Y/n now seated posed on the bed, her legs slightly apart and her lower lip between her teeth while she ate him with her eyes.

Jeremiah didn't have time to say anything before his back hit the door due to the push given by the girl who had now stood up and was standing in front of him, her hands were on his chest caressing the fabric of his shirt as she admired the embarrassment of being discovered that was presented on her engineering professor's face "Do you think I hadn't noticed you under the bed? The short strip show I did was for you" she murmured in his ear while standing slightly on her tippy toes, then kissing his jaw playfully nibbling his skin "M-Miss Y-Y/l/n it wasn't my-" his own apology was interrupted by a moan that escaped his lips as soon as he felt her lips against his skin, sucking his sweet spot while her hands traveled exploring his body "No need for unnecessary apologies.... Mr. Valeska."

Her sly and hungry y/e/c eyes met the hazel ones of Jeremiah who swallowed remaining watching her waiting for her next move which came very soon, her hand that was still playing with the fabric of his shirt at the height of his V-line, after opening his vest, moved quickly slipping into his pants groping his boner as she pressed herself against him, biting her lower lip aroused as well, her still covered boobs were against his chest, if Jeremiah would look down he could see her hard nipples, her bare leg between his as she continued groping feeling him grow and harden against her hand, action that made her moan softly while purring "what are you hiding that is so big, Mr. Valeska? " she whispered slipping her hand into his underwear grabbing his length after slowly licking her hand without stopping staring into his eyes, she began to stroke him feeling the soft skin and veins decorating it, groans came out louder and louder from Jeremiah's mouth while he stared at her with his mouth slightly open, sparks of pleasure indoned his body as she quickened her pace, moving his hands so that he could grab her ass and hold her tightly against himself without her stopping to pleasure him until she felt his length twitch and release.

Jeremiah's eyes snapped open, his hand still around his cock, his hair messy and his face flushed, fogged glasses and pants dirty again, a loud sigh escaped his lips as he occupied himself with cleaning up the mess he had made again before he started correcting the last projects trying not to think about his student in her underwear or in a shirt showing her erect nipples when it was cold, he also tried not to imagine what was under her clothes and underwear.

As soon as he finished all the things he had to do he took a quick glance at the file that Ecco had made for him on the roommate of his obsession before going to sleep holding under his pillow the little prize he had taken when he had been in her dorm room without her knowing, smiling at the thought that the next day he would see her again in his class.

Taglist:

@gabile18

@mrsfullbuster500

@trainer--taylor

@elizamalfoyy

@eovjjj

@animefan3223

@jeremiah-va1eska

@gothamchic16

@rabbiteggz

@dieg0brandos-wife

@rottenecstasy

@lazyexcuse

@teh-vampire-bunny

@lobotomy-lover

#gotham x reader #gotham #gotham tv #jeremiah valeska #jeremiah valeska imagine #jeremiah valeska x reader #jeremiah x reader #ecco gotham #jeremiah valeska x you #jeremiah valeska smut

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oh-no-another-idea · 1 year

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Manuscript search tag

Find the word tag, gifted to me by the cool @saltysupercomputer! Thanks, pal :)

From a fic:

Want:

“Hey kid,” Jack says. It comes out quieter than he’d intended; he clears his throat and starts again. “Hey kid, you want something to eat?”

The kid looks at him. “What’s the catch?” he says easily, but there’s something behind the words. Caution. He’s been offered bad deals before.

It makes Jack sad and angry. “How old are you?” he demands.

Farewell:

“Before I bid you farewell,” she says, voice ringing, “I’d like a straight answer out of you. Are you an artist?”

“Why do you care?” Jack grinds out.

The woman raises an eyebrow again. She’s good at it. “Well, like I said, I don’t hire Lawstead to sing. And you’ve seen for yourself what a disagreeable person he can be. I’m always looking for more talent. These sets don’t paint themselves!”

Jack can’t help it; he darts a look over her shoulder at the huge canvas decorating the stage. It’s painted to look like a city—deep black ironwork and tiny glittering yellow windows. A streetlamp takes up much of the foreground, and a tower rises in the distance.

From Invisible Girl:

Wheel:

Velia clutched her satchel and stared. Up close, the train seemed even larger, if that was possible. The huge wheels and coupling rod were nearly level with her head, and in the clutches of night seemed insect-like: thousands of beetles, bound and harnessed, and straining at the reins.

A boarding passenger hurried by, smacking into her shoulder and knocking her to the side. He turned and blinked at what appeared to be empty platform. With a shrug, he disappeared into the smoke.

Aid:

Rain pattered anxiously on the roof. Fynn was worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, staring at Paris like he was mortified he was going to ask for aid. Velia clocked the tightness of Paris’ shoulders, the steadiness of his hands that didn’t show whatever was going on in his brain.

Slowly, she moved over until she was standing at his left shoulder, looking down over Lewis. Fynn might be able to see what she was doing, but for once, Velia decided not to think about it. She reached for Paris’ hand.

He barely moved when she touched him, only turning his head slightly, eyes still fixed on Lewis’ shaky breathing.

No pressure tags for @winglesswriter @winterandwords @k--havok @carefulpyromancer @dontjudgemeimawriter and @theramwrites to look for help, fortune, circus, and clock! 🎪

#tag games #find the word tag #wip: invisible girl #fics and fics and fics

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nyamadermont · 2 years

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Leap of Faith

#FFF167 Leap of Faith

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Avatar: Legend of Korra

815 words

[ID: A rectangle with diagonal slashes of pink and orange over a grey background. The text “#FFF167 LEAP OF FAITH” is in black in the foreground. /END ID]

The ferry bumped up to the dock, nudging Lin out of her all-too-brief reverie. She inhaled as she straightened from the city-facing railing and braced herself for Meelo and Rohan’s over-enthusiastic welcomes.

“Chief, everyone else is off. I won’t be heading back for an hour or so. No one is waiting to go back, though there’s an acolyte waiting for you.” She nodded her thanks at the captain, all while wondering which acolyte would be bothered to meet her at the dock when they knew she was coming up to the house.

Once she stepped around the deck house, she froze.

Pema.

She allowed herself to grumble for three steps before just settling her face into her usual scowl.

“Pema,” she said before catching the very strange look on the acolyte’s face.

“There’s news about dinner, and I wanted to give you a little warning.” She stepped back as Lin disembarked, and gestured toward the Thousand Steps. They began climbing in silence, but Lin’s relief was short-lived.

“Kya showed up about an hour ago.”

Lin’s heart fluttered, and she gave a quick cough. “Is that so? Is that what you’re warning me about? We’ve been friends for years.” She pointedly kept her eyes level, staring straight ahead at the stairs.

“She said hello, but then shut herself in her room. The girls banged on her door, but haven’t gotten any response.” From the corner of her eye, Lin could see Pema waiting for a reaction.

“She didn’t seem hurt or anything, in case you’re worried about that.”

Lin scoffed. “Why would I be worried? She can care for herself just fine. Has been for years.”

Pema suddenly leaned against Lin’s shoulder, chuckling. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Lin stopped. “Noticed, what, exactly?” she asked in her coldest tones, before resuming her climb, leaving Pema stalled behind her.

Pema startled her by laughing as she took a few more steps up. “Get off it, Lin. You’re not such a closed book as you like to think. I’ve watched you watching her. She asks about you, you ask about her… You’re here more when she’s staying for a visit.” Lin looked back over her shoulder at Pema.

“Lin, I know this is going to sound strange, I know you’re going to want to explode all over me, but this is what I think you need to hear.” Lin turned to face the younger woman, who had balled up her fists in a power stance that would have been cute on a four-year-old earth bender.

“You need to take a leap of faith.”

Lin creased her brows. “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.”

Pema crossed her arms. “I’m sure you know exactly what I mean.”

Lin crossed her arms aggressively. “I don’t.”

“Then I’ll spell it out for you. Tell Kya you love her, or so help me, I’ll start scheming for real.”

Lin gaped.

Pema continued, “When I did the same thing, it was terrible and wrong. I was a child and acted in a childish way. I’m sorry for that.” She sighed, and dropped her arms.

“I’m not sorry for marrying Tenzin or having children with him. Our children are a blessing, and they happened because I took my own leap of faith. I’m only sorry that I hurt you in the process.”

Lin snapped her mouth shut and stormed up the stairs.

Even on the wooden stairs, Lin could tell that Pema had not charged after her.

Just below the final reach of stairs, Lin retracted her boot and kicked at the side of the mountain, searching the surroundings for who was where. When she saw what she wanted to see, she took a deep breath and bent her head.

Pema had climbed up until she was just outside of the reach of Lin’s hands (though not her cables). She barely heard Pema ask, “Lin? How angry are you?”

Lin just stood there for a moment. She took a deep breath before turning around and stepping down to face the woman who had changed the course of her life, so many years before.

“Pema, I’m not angry. It’s about fifteen years late, but I accept your apology. Because I can see that you put your faith in me with no guarantee how I would react.” She searched Pema’s face, but would never know what for.

And then she climbed the rest of the stairs, leaving Pema alone.

As her head came level with the courtyard, she heard Kya’s exclamation. She turned to see her new favorite person come running from the house.

She spread her arms in welcome.

Kya ran forward for a kiss and an embrace. As Pema passed them, Lin gave her a tiny nod.

Lin took a sharp breath, stepped back, and extended her hand to Kya, leading her away to the gardens.

They didn’t make it to dinner.

#flash fiction friday #FFF167 #leap of faith #a:tlok #lin beifong #pema (avatar)#kyalin #nyama's short fics

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worm1nthed1rt · 3 months

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This scarf smells like a mix of mom and bubbe. It was Bubbe’s first and I can picture her wearing it in 1965 then passing it over to my shivering mom who’d end up keeping it locked in the mountains for another three four five decades. Just in time for me to find it and unfold the creases like fossils that have sat dormant all that time. Every time I wear it we trade smells. I claim that scent of potpurri saches and my childhood home while the scarf claims my old spice lavender deodorant and overpriced aesop perfume. An unfair trade to my benefit.

Thanks for thinking of me and thanks for calling me when you did. Thanks but I can’t rn right now im going out in an hour. Yah it should be fun thanks. Maybe tomorrow?

I wonder how many more times I’ll sit in these horrendous neon chairs. How many more times I’ll catch the red line and ride alllll the way to the end. Sitting alone watching people watching each other watching me. Moving in and out between two spaces, no longer here, not yet there, an awkward silent transition. How many more times will I anxiously tear apart my bag in search of Extra Cinnamon to ease my ears before the train dives under the bay. Maybe four maybe five. Maybe this is the last time. If it is I want to remember the blank faces, the jolting sway of seat, the wind that rushes through the tunnel, the damp platforms, and the girl with neon pink hair.

I’m trying to find something to say about last night but I have nothing. Blank, tasteless. Sorry that I got a bloody nose and shattered your only plates.

And now I’m back in the mountains trying to make sense of Bishops landscape. Understanding it’s purple grays and cool browns. Sticks thin and tall blur together, blending the foreground into a perfect water color. Moose-leg-shaped tree trunks and telephone poles pierce the horizon — now turned pitch black on contrast to the scene. The sublime American West.

It reminds me of those 19th century oil paintings of Yosemite valley birthed by fabulous, god-fearing, frontiersmen— ah! the picturesque. The dense black blue clouds softy open to reveal sun, the deer hiding in the shadow of a monstrous cliff, the pine as tall as mountains and mountains as tall as god.

if there’s anything close to god it’s bishops frontier.

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daijoboob · 3 years

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wassup wlws and treasured allies. heres the wilw redraw that i started/dropped back in august, freshly polished for @diakkoday :^)

elapsed time: 15 hours? 17?? i lost my sense of time in the lining process

(click on the images for higher quality!)

LOTS of notes and bonus art (including old drafts :o) under the cut!

most important business is up first! this is the last intensive lwa piece that i intend to produce for the foreseeable future. i burned myself out on drawing the girls way back in dianakko week, and then again last month.

while i (accidentally,,) paced myself for this one, i’m not quite feeling it anymore. i don’t know when i will be next, or frankly if at all. rebounding back into the fandom at all was a big quarantine induced surprise in itself. which is all to say- sorry if you were looking forward to more lwa from me :(

for the moment, i’m posting a whole lotta love live, personal pieces, and likely some other fandoms. please hang around for that if you’re interested!

NOTES:

i am aware that accidentally made diana’s face too ikemen >>; i intended to redraw it every time i popped open the doc, and forgot every single time.

i opted not to use a harsh lighting layer for this! just a gradient overlay (specific layer effect: add). i felt like hard lighting would take away from the cartoony vibe.

the lining took so long. every couple of weeks i’d just pop open the doc, slog through a couple lines, and close it indefinitely. i wanted so badly to not have to deal with the anatomy but we managed it ok bros

a lot of time was also dedicated to cleaning the lines. i’d taken so long to finish it that i figured i might as well make it just, way too polished

i wasn’t sure whether or not to keep the colored lines! i like the version with black lineart just about equally. colored lines feel more polished to me, but maybe it could use the extra contrast haha.

i was very tempted to change the color palettes- particularly in switching diana’s shirt to a blue, like i did with the face paint.

the last image is a reference to a meme that circulated back when the toh episode aired! i’d love to give credit to the original creator, but have completely lost track of it. if anyone recalls the link and can shoot it over that’d be very appreciated :)

lotte is a national treasure and i love her to bits

this is what the bg looks like! i rendered it just enough for it to look full with all the layers up. this was the quickest part of the process hands down- completed it start to finish in ~1.5 hours. because i rendered diakko+lotte in harsh solid lines and shading, i wanted the bg to be soft and fuzzy. ideally the contrast between the foreground and background coloring would be stronger, but i gave up trying to figure that out lol.

the og sketch!! when i was putting together this post, i did a handful of screencap redraws and saw what stuck.

more of those sketches! i liked how diana turned out :^) you can see that i still wasn’t sure how much of the toh style to integrate at this point!

figured i might as well stick the other sketches from diakko week in here as well! the latter two led to this and this respectively. i switched to diana not Doin Too Well with scary movies purely because i thought it was funnier lmao

and that’s it! thanks for reading through if you did. i thought about not doing this at all, but i find others’ artist notes really interesting and figured some of you might as well.

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potato-with-hair · 3 years

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Fake News

First tumblr Story Ever

As the newest Avenger it seemed that Tony Stark and Captain Rogers were more than comfortable sending you out on all of the shit missions, granted, you could use the time in with your new teammates to learn their little quirks and start working to meld your abilities with theirs so that you could start working together seamlessly, but it was getting ridiculous. You were half expecting to start getting told to go out and help the NYFD rescue kittens from trees and helping the NYPD direct traffic on Broadway in Manhattan during rush hour. Y/N was a technopath, which was a fancy name for someone who could control technology and anything mechanical with their mind, or if you wanted to be technical about it, according to the official S.H.I.E.L.D. dossier:

Y/L/N, Y/N: Main Ability: Technology Manipulation

User can manipulate technology, the sum of techniques, skills, methods, and

processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment

of objectives. However, most users only can exert control over technological

constructs, such as computers, robots, hardware, and other devices that can be

termed as "technology", in any way. Manifested as a special form of electrical/telekinetic manipulation, a special form of "morphing" which allows physical interaction with machines, or even a psychic ability that allows mental interface with computer data.

Also Called:

· Cyberkinesis

· Cyberpathy

· Mechanokinesis

· Technokinesis

· Technopathy

Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, spring was coming to a close and summer was just around the corner. Tony asked me and Sam Wilson, you may know him as Falcon, to head to midtown

Manhattan because there were some “unsavory” characters hanging around Grand Central Station.

Turns out it was some low-level HYDRA minions that were basically trying to see what kind of trouble they could cause, they had planted a pipe bomb in a waste bin in the middle of the station and it was a Friday when thousands of people would be traveling through the station heading to and from work and school. I think that HYDRA was more or less just testing us Avengers out to what abilities we had and see if there are any hidden capabilities we possessed before they come at us for a full-scale attack.

Sam and I arrived and were able to find the pipe bomb relatively quickly, part of my ability is being able to read the signatures of different technologies and mechanics, and if you don’t think that a bomb countdown timer throws out a red flag, you are mistaken. Anyway, we found it, and rather than call bomb and arson with New York’s Finest, I was able to manipulate the mechanics myself using my mind. I shut down the detonator without ever touching the bomb and made the whole thing inactive within a few minutes time.

Easy peasy, 10 minutes, another fast sweep which took an additional 30 minutes, and Sam and I were finished and ready for our close-ups from the media that always, inevitably followed. We had a small group of media that always showed up whenever a call went out that an Avenger was “working” and there was almost always a small fan base at Grand Central or where ever we were working who would come up to thank us, like we were some sort of rock stars, and as per usual some of the younger men and women took the opportunity to do some flirting with us. Tony told us, unattached Avengers, that any publicity and light flirting and playfulness with the fans was good publicity and would help for the public to relate to us and see us in a positive light. I am not going to lie, I may or may not have had a little thing for our resident speedy Sokovian, but our little flirting in the compound never seemed to go beyond that, flirting. I thought there was a possibility he liked me also, but, so far, nothing. Although I did catch him staring at me quite often and Wanda and some of the guys were always talking to him and then immediately looking in her direction like they were just discussing her. Pietro did seem to always try to be around me and sit near me as often as possible as well. Also when the “fans” would flirt with him, I noticed he never really showed much interest in them, always watching to see what I was doing.

Oh well, time to spend a little time with the crowd before Sam and I headed back to the compound. The New York Times was talking to some travelers about the pipe bomb that was found in the wastebasket and what their thoughts were and how they felt about us being there to “save the day, yet again” when an overzealous “fan” started to get a little handsy with me in the background. He had followed me around and asked me to dinner a few times, flashing cash and his business card a few times, trying to press it into my hand multiple times. I explained I was really bust and thanked him but said I was not interested or available, but he kept perusing me. He was leaning over my shoulder with his hand around my waist from behind, body pulled directly flush with my back and he was in an excited state if you know what I mean, and he was whispering in my ear about some of his fantasies and things that he has dreamt of doing to me. Of course, the camera flashed right as he started to kiss my neck and I had a smile on my face because I was focusing on a sweet 10 year old in front of me asking for my autograph and telling me I was her favorite avenger. If the camera had waited all of 5 seconds more, they would have caught me performing a minor assault on the prick and another 5 seconds would have caught Sam pulling me off of him and flying us out of the station and back to the compound with his hand over my mouth because I let lose a string of explicative’s that would put Wade Wilson to shame.

The next morning I woke up and took a shower, went down to the kitchen and made my normal toast and juice and bowl of fruit, and could not help notice that the Avengers that were there were looking at me strangely, I thought it was because I was still in a sour mood because of that jerk from yesterday and the icky feeling he gave me that I was assaulted by scum. I knew that Rogers, Wanda, Sam, and Nat were on their way to Lagos on a mission. Thor and Banner were MIA since Sokovia, which left Stark, Rhodey, Vision, Pietro and I still here.

“Y/N, so, how was the pipe bomb incident yesterday?” Tony asked seemingly hinting at something

“Uneventful aside from a slight annoyance in the crowd, is there coffee left?” Y/N responded looking at him while rising to get a mug and pour a hot mug to clear the remaining sleep from my head.

“Nothing happened? Nobody special you want to tell us about?” Rhodey chimes in.

“Not that I am aware of or worth mentioning now that it’s done and over with, is there something you would like to tell me about?” Y/N asks looking back and forth to them. “Hey, where’s Speedy, he’s usually down here eating everything that isn’t trying to eat him first.”

Tony looks at Y/N and smirks, “It is strange that you should mention that, he came in about 20 minutes ago, I assume you were in the shower or I am sure you would have heard him, saw the cover of the New York Times, flipped out and, well, here you are, please take a look, we are on pins and needles to know what you think. And I hope you know that all suitors must meet the full team before you becoming an “item” and pass Avenger inspection, and Rogers is particularly tough.” He slid the paper across the kitchen island to where you sat, both he and Rhodey watching your face for a reaction. You unfolded the paper confused and looked at the front cover.

There in black and white at you was a close up of the stranger with his arms around your waist from behind, you leaning slightly forward smiling and the stranger kissing your neck, the little girl you were smiling at was covered by the person being interviewed in the foreground. To someone who was not there and did not know the story, this definitely looked bad, like a very intimate moment caught on film, the headline read ‘Newest Avenger Moving Fast With New York Wall Street Trader’ the article went on to talk about how you just met the guy and did not bother to get his name, but just let him put the moves on you, yadda, yadda, yadda. Apparently, after Sam got you out of there, the “gentleman: in question decided to make a name for himself and gave a short interview making it sound like you approached him and started the whole flirt fest, lead him on, and then abandoned him, with the promise to return. You looked at Tony and Rhodey with wide eyes and a sick feeling in your stomach, “This is the biggest load of shit I have ever read in my life, this is not anything at all what happened. About 3 seconds after this picture was snapped, I basically slapped the taste out of his mouth and would have continued to do so had Sam not gotten me out of there. Flirting? More like this guy assaulted me. This was not consensual or wanted. I told him multiple times I was not interested and refused his advances and invitations to dinner and he kept bothering me. I was talking to a little kid and he pulled this crap when I had my back turned to him.”

Tony went from joking to serious almost instantly, “Okay, we were just going to bust your balls on this a little bit, but this has just become a non-joke. I’ll have Pepper contact someone in Stark Industries legal department to get in touch with the paper to track this guy down, he’ll have had to sign a waiver for publication and we’re going to go after him for liable and harassment. If he tries to come after you for battery for the assault, well, we’ll call that defense, Avenger or not, no one gets to touch you without permission. Y/n we really didn’t know, we were just going to play around with you about this a little, and we had no idea. He didn’t do any weird stuff, right?”

“NO, I mean, I slapped him and Sam pulled me off of him and flew me out of there, anything beyond what he did to me and you would have been getting a call from New York’s finest about bail or my court hearing for homicide. I was shocked, but if it had gone beyond what it was, I would have raged a lot harder than I did. The headline in the paper would have read a lot differently today.” Y/N responded.

“Alright, I know that yesterday was weird and I know that Nat and Wanda have had to deal with crap like this from time to time, unfortunately being an attractive woman on the team seems to let the guys out there think that it is open season to treat you ladies like meat. It is unfair and it sucks and if any of the men on the team are around just say the word and well step in and make sure the guys know it’s not okay, or step back and let you take care of it yourself, whatever you feel more comfortable with. In the meantime, take the weekend off and go to a spa or go shopping or to the movies or whatever you need to do to feel better, charge everything to Stark okay. Just let us know if you need anything alright.” Tony hugged you with one arm and kissed the top of your head. “One thing though, Lightning Legs. He flipped out when he saw this. He thought it was true and got hot and bothered. I would suggest finding him and letting him know what is really going on because the last thing you need right now is a crazy Sokovian kid acting like a jealous boyfriend right now.”

You look us at Tony and across the island to Rhodey, “What is that all about, what is he flipping out about, he brags about all the women he is into and dated back in Sokovia all the time, what does he care about what happens to me?”

“Y/N are you serious? That kid has been crazy in love with you since Sokovia. I swear I was coming close to sending you both on a mission that involved a tropical island and a case of rum soon. If he’s not staring at you, you are staring at him. It’s sickening.” Tony finished with a sarcastic eye roll. Go relax in your room, we'll take care of this. Just try to put it from your mind and well talk soon. With that, you left and headed to the elevator bank to the sleeping quarters level, feeling shitty, but better because you knew Tony would do what he could to help.

You were only in your Bedroom Suite for about half an hour when there was a somewhat frantic knocking at your door. You got up from your bed, put down the book you were currently reading, and made your way to the door, opening it, you found a seemingly tormented Pietro, he entered your quarters without an invitation and started to pace the length of your room, looking at you, Y/N could tell he needed to speak, but he was not sure where or how to start.

“Y/N, I ……. The newspaper, I saw the picture and…… Who is he? Do you like him? I mean does he make you happy? I want you to be happy……… I know that no one will ever be able to………. Not like I do………” Pietro kept starting and stopping sentences, never actually completing any, and getting agitated. You had never seen him this disconcerted before, he was always so unruffled when he would flirt with you before and this was a whole new side to him that you had never seen before. It was like he was unsure of himself and it was not something he was sure of how to process. You walked towards where Pietro was walking seemingly carrying on an argument with himself and reached out for his hands.

“Pietro, please stop, okay, please. It is not what you think, I don’t know that guy. It was fake, it was false, I don’t know him, I did not ask for that, I did not tell him it was okay to touch me or kiss me like that, I was not alright with that, He did that without my permission, and the photographer took a picture and they wrote some fake story to make it seem like I was into it. I did not want that. I don’t know him, I feel disgusted by that.” You start to rub your neck where the creep kissed you, sat down on the plush cushioned ottoman bench at the foot of your bed and start to curl into yourself to make yourself as small as possible as Pietro looks at you taking in your words.

“Wait, moja bohyňa (my goddess,) some guy you do not know came up to you and started to touch you and kiss you without your permission? No, I will not allow this, who is this man; I will go fight him right now. Žiadny odpadok sa nemôže dotknúť mojej bohyne bez jej súhlasu. Nikomu by nemalo byť dovolené pozerať sa na ňu bez toho, aby sa poďakoval bohom, že bola stvorená. (No trash can touch my goddess without her consent. No man should ever be allowed to look on her, without thanking the gods that she was created.) Are you okay?” He sat on the bench next to you giving you plenty of space, not wanting to crowd you. “I will kill this man, why would he think he could touch you, Bohyňa (Goddess,) if I had been there, I would have stopped him immediately, I am so sorry I was not there with you. “ Pietro sat staring forward with a look of disappointment in himself. You leaned over towards him putting your head on his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around you pulling you into him. You snuggled your face into his chest drawing designs on his stomach and chest with your finger as he kissed your head and held you close.

“Tony is going to get the Legal department of Stark Industries to look into the paper and find out who the guy is and get him charged with harassment, and I may or may not have given him a good slap as soon as I got over my shock and realized what was happening, so I figure I should let the cops know everything in case he decided to try to press charges later for battery saying I attacked him. But I promise Pietro, there is absolutely nothing at all going on with that guy or any other guy in my life because I was sort of waiting for someone I had a sort of thing for to maybe make a move, but I didn’t think that he was interested, so I had basically given up hope and just accepted that we would only be friends, and that was okay, but I really was hoping he would let me know he felt the same.” You continued tracing symbols on Pietro's chest with her fingers nervously

Pietro put his hand gently under Y/Ns chin and raised her face so that his clear blue eyes were looking directly into Y/N/E/C, “Do I know this guy?” He asked finally deciding to go with the advice the rest of the team when they told him that Y/N was definitely into him, and Wanda assured him that yes, Y/N thought about him often and was only too nervous to make the first move, but if Pietro would, she would be receptive.

Y/N looks from Pietro's eyes to his lips and back to his eyes again and states “I am sure you have seen him around here, sometimes he’s hard to spot because he’s pretty fast, but when he stops or slows down and doesn’t try so hard to impress everyone he’s really an amazing guy. I have to say to, he is sexy as hell too, and he has this accent when he talks, uggghhh, it does things to me.” Y/N just smiles at him teasingly.

Pietro chuckles and smiling leans in but says softly before he kisses you, “Prednesiem vám básne a texty, ak ma chcete počuť hovoriť, poviem vám všetky veci, ktoré chcem s vami a s vami urobiť, ale nikdy vám nebudem môcť vyjadriť, ako veľmi vás milujem a uctievam. Teraz si môj, ako ja tvoj, navždy. (I will recite you poetry and lyrics if you want to hear me speak, I will tell you all the things I want to do to you and with you, but I will never be able to express to you, how much I love and worship you. You are mine now as I am your, forever.)” He then lays the softest and most soul-baring kiss on Y/N that she has ever felt. It was as if all the passions in the world could have been transferred to her through that kiss and as he softly caresses her face while peppering gentle kisses on her face, Y/N thinks that maybe this stupid picture is not the worst thing in the world to ever happen to her if it is what FINALLY brought her and Pietro together, she figures if nothing else, this will be a brilliant story to tell their kids someday.

Slovakian substituted for Sokovian

Y/N = Your Name

Y/L/N = Your Last Name

Y/N/E/C = Your Eye Color

#pietro marvel #pietro x reader #pietro x you #pietro x y/n #pietro maximoff #pietro fluff #Pietro jealous #slight dubcon #fluff

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bridgertown · 3 years

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How Bridgerton is poised to revolutionize romance on television

Lace up your corset and put up your dukes.

Words by Maureen Lee Lenker, November 13, 2020

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Regency romance must be in want of glittering ballrooms, witty banter, a dashing leading man, and a piquant heroine.

Bridgerton, Netflix’s first scripted title with über-producer Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland production company — under its headline-grabbing $150 million deal — has all of this in abundance. Not to mention a diverse cast that’s a far cry from the typical lily-white hues of Jane Austen adaptations and their ilk. Oh, and the narrator is a Regency-era Gossip Girl voiced by Julie Andrews. As showrunner Chris Van Dusen puts it, “It’s not your grandmother’s period [piece].”

Based on a series of romance novels by Julia Quinn — beginning with The Duke and I, which offers the season 1 blueprint — Bridgerton follows Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), a debutante who’s thirsty for a love match. Buoyed (and slightly overprotected) by her family, including her marriage-obsessed mum, Violet (Ruth Gemmell), and her seven siblings, Daphne embarks on a fauxmance with Simon, the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page). “When we first meet her, she’s this young, naive woman who’s been in this little bubble and doesn’t know anything about love or sex,” says Dynevor.

Simon, meanwhile, is hell-bent on avoiding matrimony, as part of a vengeful vow he made to his execrable father. Page drew inspiration from the classic Romantic poet Lord Byron to craft a character who is part aesthete, part brooding enigma. “You have this beautiful, shadowy, broken, thoroughly complex man, who is as glamorous as we all wish we were on the outside,” notes Page. “But [he’s] trying to figure out who he is.”

It’s standard fare for Shondaland: men and women looking to find themselves within the social confines of their reality. This time it’s in a completely different world, one that shares the female-gaze ethos that often defines Shondaland series — think Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and more. Romance novels account for nearly a quarter of all fiction book sales, yet they’re rarely fodder for splashy screen adaptations. “I never thought this would happen to me,” Quinn says. “Nobody was adapting romance novels, and if somebody was going to do a period piece, they wanted to do another adaptation of Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters.”

That prestige gap between Austen and mass-market historical romance was something executive producer Betsy Beers admits she bumped up against when Rhimes first recommended the novels to her. “I didn’t take what the books were as seriously as I could’ve initially,” she says. “But there should be no pejorative association with romance novels. Nobody sneezes at suspense, at action, at true crime. These are just good stories about relationships, about emotional politics, about how you juggle duty, love, and lust.”

For Van Dusen, the 280-year evolution of romance writing was something to exploit. “I wanted to infuse everything with my own unique, modern lens,” he says. “The tone is very spirited and daring. Everything’s fresh and youthful. There’s a little effervescence to everything.”

That freshness manifests throughout — from the score, which features classical string arrangements of contemporary pop songs (Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next,” Shawn Mendes’ “In My Blood”), to the costumes (“Jane Austen loved her bonnets, but Bridgerton is a bonnet-free world,” quips Van Dusen). But nowhere is it more evident than in the casting.

The series looks like any Shondaland show: multi-hued and reflective of the world we live in. Romance novelists like Vanessa Riley and Diana Quincy are challenging the established narrative of who inhabited the 19th-century aristocracy. Austen herself featured a mixed-race heiress in her unfinished novel Sanditon. But such a cast is still dismayingly rare in period pieces.

Though the casting here is a far cry from the source material, Quinn wholeheartedly endorses it. “Bridgerton isn’t a history lesson; it’s a show for a modern audience,” she notes. There were, of course, people of color who existed in this time and place, but the show hands them more power than historical assumptions allow. It imagines a British aristocracy where Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) is of mixed race (a fact some historians suggest there’s evidence for), thus elevating other people of color to dukedoms and positions of status. “It’s not color-blind casting,” explains Beers. “We try to imagine history and the world in the way we wanted to see it.”

It’s what allows Page to play the powerful, devastatingly handsome duke, a role that previously would have been the exclusive domain of white actors. For Page, who made his U.S. TV debut as Chicken George in the 2016 remake of Roots, it makes Bridgerton’s romantic narrative even more potent. “With color-conscious casting, I get to exist as a Black person in the world,” he says. “It doesn’t mean I’m a slave. It doesn’t mean we have to focus on trauma. It just means we get to focus on Black joy and humanity.”

That joy opens up another narrative component often left behind closed doors in period drama: intimacy. Typically, the Regency’s idea of sexual tension is the brush of a gloved hand, but in the world of Bridgerton, audiences find themselves in an opera singer’s boudoir within the first 10 minutes. “The sexiness and the steaminess was always going to be there,” says Van Dusen, adding that it’s core to the “education of Daphne Bridgerton.”

Dynevor echoes this, explaining that the show’s sex scenes, overseen by an intimacy coordinator, were as intricately choreographed as a fight sequence. But for Dynevor, it was a key part of Daphne’s arc, one that foregrounds her character’s wants above any objectified desirability. (What other Regency literary adaptations feature a heroine experimenting with self-pleasure at the suggestion of her suitor?)

“It’s not often you see sex [treated] in that way,” Dynevor reflects. “It wasn’t gratuitous. It was so essential in Daphne’s journey and sexual awakening. I love the fact that it is very much the female gaze.”

That gaze is the connective tissue between Shondaland and romance publishing, a match so fortuitous it could only end in happily ever after. “[The show] is not going to be so different from the experience of reading a romance novel,” Van Dusen concludes. “It’s sexy and a little dangerous and fun. It leaves you a little hot and bothered and breathless.” Fetch the fainting couch — and the remote.

Bridgerton hits Netflix on Dec. 25.

#long post #bridgerton #the bridgertons #bridgerton netflix #netflix #netflix bridgerton #daphne bridgerton #simon basset #julia quinn #ew #entertainment weekly #article

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felassan · 3 years

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Dragon Age Library Edition Volume 1 annotations & additional pages/art compilation

Dragon Age Library Edition Volume 1 is a hardcover collection of some pre-existing Dragon Age comics that was released in 2014. It comprises of all issues of The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak and Until We Sleep. In places, it includes additional annotations/commentaries by the illustrators and authors, as well as a few additional pages with additional art. iirc these additional annotations and pages/art aren’t featured or available anywhere else (in the franchise I mean; other people have probably put them online at some point I’m sure).

From what I can see at least, Library Edition Volume 1 is no longer in print, and as such listings for it on resale sites etc are.. price-inflated & prohibitively expensive (~£100+, which I’m sure we can all agree is just not reasonable or accessible to most people). Due to this, I’ve compiled the additional annotations and pages here in this post. Thank you and credit to @artevalentinapaz, who kindly shared the material with me. This post has been made with their permission. The rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

These commentaries are in the context of The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak and Until We Sleep. If you notice any errors or annotations missing, or need anything clarified, just let me know. I think the annotations are in chronological order. In places I elaborated in square brackets to help explain which part of the comics an annotation is referring to. A note before you proceed further: some of the topics referenced in the annotations/additional pages are heavy or uncomfortable. The quotes here are word-for-word transcriptions of dev/creator commentaries, not my personal opinions or phrasings.

(Also, I do recommend always supporting comic creators by purchasing their comics legitimately. I own each issue of these comics having bought other editions of them all legitimately. The reason I put this post together is because this specific Library Edition volume has been discontinued and the consequently-inflated cost is so high, rendering the additional material inaccessible to most.)

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The Silent Grove annotations

Illustrator Chad Hardin: “I used to be an environmental artist for video games, so I built a 3-D model of Antiva City using the program Silo. Many of the buildings are simple cubes, but a few are more detailed. Overall, I spent the better part of a day building it, but I used it again and again throughout The Silent Grove to maintain continuity in the backgrounds.”

Script Writer Alexander Freed: “Even working with David Gaider, it took me several drafts to find Alistair’s voice. His narrative had to convey his humor and self-doubt from Dragon Age: Origins while suggesting a newfound weariness earned during his years on the throne. For readers familiar with the character, he needed to seem like a changed Alistair - but Alistair nonetheless.”

Chad Hardin: “If you read a lot of comics, you might wonder why the majority of the heroes wear skin-tight suits. Well, I can tell you: they are easy and quick to draw. In video games, you build the model once and then animate it, so details don’t slow you down. In comics, everything has to be rendered by hand. Varric and Alistair’s outfits were quite detailed. It took me a long time to get used to them, and even longer to memorize the designs until drawing them was second nature - Varric’s knee armor in particular! Oy vey!”

David Gaider: “One of my favorite scenes in the entire series [when Varric and Isabela are disarming traps and picking locks together while Alistair looks on]. Isabela and Varric, doing what rogues do. I had a suggestion for how to put it together, but Alex managed to make it fit and did a great job with it.”

Chad Hardin: “I never used to keep any of the artwork I created for comics. I would just hand the pages over to my agent to sell. This page [when Alistair, Varric and Isabela are in a tavern together, with hookah in the foreground] I kept for myself. I love the hookah-smoking elves in the second panel and Isabela’s face in the last panel. I rendered the first four chapters of The Silent Grove in grayscale using ink washes, gouache and Copie markers.”

David Gaider: “For a little while, Varric [in these comic stories] was supposed to be Zevran from Dragon Age: Origins, which would have made sense, Zevran being Antivan and all. I know that some fans would have loved to see him, but the dynamics of the group just didn’t work as well. Then a planned cameo later had to be cut for space. Ah well, Zev, another time.”

Alexander Freed: “Isabela at her most dangerous [climbing up the side of the cliff]. This scene - featuring a scantily clad, dripping-wet woman who tends to flaunt her sexuality - could easily have come across as exploitative, but Chad did a lovely drop portraying Isabela as purely focused and deadly.”

Chad Hardin: “Isabela rising out of the water and scaling the cliff with the knife in her mouth is one of my favorite parts of The Silent Grove. It is one of those moments where the writing really inspired the art. Hats off to Alex and David. This is another page I kept for myself.”

Colorist Michael Atiyeh: “This is one of my favorite Dragon Age pages. Chad is such an amazing artist; I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with him.”

Chad Hardin: “I love that this page [when a guard spots Varric and shouts ‘Intruder!’] made it in uncensored. So many times in comics, I draw something and some stuffy lawyers come out of the woodwork and tell me to tone it down. Dark Horse and BioWare always let me have fun, and this turned out to be one of my favorite pages with Varric and Bianca. Any guesses to which word he is mouthing in the second panel?”

Alexander Freed: “Note the simple decency of Alistair as he gives his cloak, without comment, to Isabela. For all his flaws, he’s genuinely kind at heart - a rare enough trait in Isabela’s world that I think it’s much of what she values in him.”

Chad Hardin: “I love the opening panel to this chapter [the opening panels to Chapter 3, when the team are on a ship at sea]. It’s the image I use on the homepage of my website. This page was a gift to my cousin Wendy, who loves pirates. Seascapes with sailing ships might be clichéd in fine art, but for me it was a first.”

David Gaider: “I wanted to have this story center on the group travelling to a Witch of the Wilds other than Flemeth, and originally I had set it somewhere else - until I remembered a Codex entry from Dragon: Age Origins that offhandedly mentioned a witch in the Tellari Swamps. Brilliant! It’d look like I planned it all along. I didn’t.”

Michael Atiyeh: “I love opportunities where I can show a change in the time of day as you move from panel to panel [when the ship heads towards and the team arrive in the Tellari Swamps]. I feel the palette of each panel is very distinct and beautiful.”

Alexander Freed: “Why did Alistair choose two people he barely knows to be his companions on this quest? We never make this explicit, but of course Varric is on the right track. Alistair wants to surround himself with people who don’t know him and won’t judge him, yet it’s Alistair’s idealism that Isabela and Varric work to preserve.”

Chad Hardin: “Another page where the writing inspired the art [when the group suddenly encounter a dragon]. I love the dragon bursting onto the scene and Isabela’s stare. Some writers will try to cram six or seven panels on a page like this and the pacing just doesn’t allow the artist to give each moment the right punch. Can you imagine if the first panel was crammed into a single square inch?”

Chad Hardin: “Yavana was one of the only characters that we did no preliminary sketches for. I don’t know how that happened, but thankfully it worked out.”

David Gaider: “I love how Yavana looks like a cross between Flemeth and Morrigan. Flemmigan? She’s totally Chad’s design, and it’s great. Typical for these witches, she never says things straight. In my mind, this Alistair is the one who did the Dark Ritual in Dragon Age: Origins - and I was half-tempted to have him lose his cool in this first scene [opening panels of Chapter 4] with her. Too early, though.”

Alexander Freed: “Through this whole sequence [the page when Varric aims Bianca at Yavana], Yavana is dropping cryptic hints and Alistair is refusing to play along. He’s met Flemeth and Morrigan - he knows Yavana won’t give him a straight answer, and he won’t give her the satisfaction of asking needlessly.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Sometimes it’s the little things on a page that spark my interest. Here [when the team navigate vines and mud to get to the temple], the sunset panel came out great and the mud looks really thick and gooey. It’s fun to focus on these details and make them stand out.”

Chad Hardin: “I hated drawing this scene [when Isabela gets kicked] where Isabela gets the boot to the face. Call me old fashioned, but I was raised to believe that only a coward would ever hit a woman (even a battle-hardened pirate adventurer). I draw at home, and my girls often watch me work in my studio. This was a page I didn’t want them watching me draw. I do like, though, that Isabela gets up, yanks the arrow out, and then soldiers on (and later extracts brutal revenge).”

Michael Atiyeh: “Poor Isabela. It seems I gave her more bruises and black eyes than any of the other characters. [when Isabela is yanking the arrow out]”

Chad Hardin: “It’s always interesting to go back and look at artwork because it reminds me of what was going on in my life at the time. I inked this page [opening panels of Chapter 5] at a ‘draw night’ session at an anime convention in St. George, Utah. I was one of the special guests, but I missed the first day because I was at my grandfather’s funeral in Las Vegas, Nevada. Seeing this page brought back those memories.”

David Gaider: “‘Bianca says hello.’ [quoting the panels being referenced] I adore Varric. I was tempted to have him narrate the entire series [in reference to these three comics], but then again I liked the idea of having each series center on one of the trio’s viewpoints. This book belongs to Alistair, but that doesn’t stop Varric from getting all the best lines.”

Alexander Freed: “Claudio, of course, is not a terribly sympathetic figure. But I wanted to emphasize that he takes this fight as personally as Isabela - he sincerely loved Luis and blames Isabela for the man’s death. I think it’s important to give every character, even the most loathsome, some dignity. [when Isabela and Claudio are fighting]”

Chad Hardin: “Payback! Here is where Isabela extracts her revenge on Claudio [when Isabela stabs Claudio]. I never enjoyed killing off a character so much. I particularly enjoyed putting the look of shock in his eyes. He had it coming. There is something satisfying about killing a ‘made man’.”

Chad Hardin: “Every now and then when drawing comics, I wish I could animate some panels and watch them as a cartoon. It would be great to see this sequence [when Yavana catches Claudio’s soul] in full motion as Yavana snatches Claudio’s soul, makes it reenter his corpse and then extracts information from him until he bursts into flame. It was a very Hellboy-ish moment. I enjoyed the movie that played in my mind while drawing this scene. Hope everyone liked the result.”

Chad Hardin: “As I mentioned on page 17, I rendered the first four chapters in grayscale, which made the black-and-white art look great, but had a neutralizing effect when it came to colors. By the time I drew chapter 4, I had seen the effect it was having and decided to stop using the grayscale so the colors would pop. When I saw this page [when Alistair says to Yavana ‘And we helped you find it’] in print, it confirmed to me that I made the right decision. I honestly feel this art was the best of The Silent Grove.”

Chad Hardin: “I practically painted these pages [when Yavana says ‘It is permitted. Tonight and only tonight’] in thumbnails hoping it would help me choose how to render them in ink. It is so hard trying to figure out how to get a full range of value out of just black and white. There are some artists and inkers that make this look easy. Mark Schultz comes to mind. Michael saved my bacon. Colorists really do so much work when it comes to rendering; this page came out awesome because of him.”

David Gaider: “Here we reveal the existence of Great Dragons (as opposed to High Dragons), and also that Yavana was the source of the return of dragons to Thedas after their departure for so many centuries. But why? There’s the rub, and not even Alistair can trust that she’s telling him the truth.”

David Gaider: “Here’s the controversial scene [Alistair killing Yavana]. I think some fans don’t like that Alistair did this, and have said they consider it out of character. I don’t. From his perspective, Flemeth and her daughters have been toying with the world for reasons that can’t be trusted. They dragged Maric away from his family, from him. One might think his judgement foolish, but considering what Alistair was capable of deciding even back in Dragon Age: Origins, it’s certainly not out of character.”

Chad Hardin: “[same scene as above] This was a controversial page, and there were a lot of people who thought it was out of character for Alistair to kill Yavana (I didn’t see it coming - I mean, you just don’t kill a Witch of the Wild), but here is the thing: this page is Alistair acting as a king. Yavana has been manipulating him, trying to play him like a pawn, and he just can’t allow that. There’s too much at stake, for himself and for his subjects.”

Alexander Freed: “The end? An end, at least [the trio walking off into the distance]. The series needed a note of closure while leading into Those Who Speak (which wouldn’t arrive until many months later). David tweaked the ending in the outline several times, and I did my best to balance resolving Alistair’s emotional journey without resolving the quest. It’s not as clean as I’d have liked, but fortunately, now it’s all in one volume...”

Those Who Speak annotations

Alexander Freed: “Capturing Isabela’s narrative voice was much easier for me than capturing Alistair’s - partly because I’d already written The Silent Grove, and partly because of my own writing proclivities. Rereading now, I wonder if I laid on the (mild) profanity a bit too thick. I’ll leave you to judge.”

David Gaider: “I like the additional detail Alex and Chad put in, letting us see more of Qarinus and more of Isabela’s crew. Alex wanted to give her crew more of a presence, and let her first mate have some face time, so they weren’t just parts of the scenery. Good call on his part.”

David Gaider: “I’m really fond of the formal getups Chad made for the party. Isabela’s actually comes from a concept we didn’t use from the cancelled Dragon Age 2 expansion, if I remember right. And Maevaris came from me asking for ‘someone who looks like Mae West’ - with the wonderful outfit all Chad’s doing.

Chad Hardin: “Maevaris. I love Mae. When David and Dragon Age art director Matthew Goldman spoke to me about designing Mae, they wanted her to be fully female with the exception of her biology. They told me to think ‘Mae West’. Well, when I think of Mae West, I think of her... womanly shape. So, drawing Maevaris was always walking a fine line between portraying Mae’s identity and her biology. The process endeared her to me.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Just like in The Silent Grove, we are introduced to another gentleman from Isabela’s past [when the team meet Lord Devon and Isabela threatens him]. As was the case with Claudio, he will meet his fate at her hands.”

Chad Hardin: “When I was drawing Titus, my kids asked me why I was drawing ‘angry Jesus’ or ‘evil Jesus’. I can’t remember which term they used exactly, but it made me chuckle. I was going for a mix of Rapustin and Joe Stalin, but ‘evil Jesus’ would do.”

David Gaider: “I’m not sure it’s apparent here [when Alistair says ‘I’d really rather not’], but Alistair was supposed to be using one of his Templar powers on Titus (that’s why Titus recognizes what he is on the next page) and disrupting his magic.”

Alexander Freed: “Isabela is witty and charming enough that it can be easy to forget that she’s not, in fact, a nice person. Even after finishing the outline, David was concerned about making her too unsympathetic - but I loved his approach in this series. The dark deeds Isabela commits - this murder included [Isabela killing Lord Devon] - are what make her guilt tangible and no easy matter to overcome.”

Alexander Freed: “I thought the notions of Isabela’s pride in her captaincy and dedication to her crew were some of the most interesting aspects of her character in David’s story. In scenes here [when Isabela is on her ship saying ‘Keep them focused and keep them sober’] and elsewhere, I did my best to emphasize their place at the core of Isabela’s world.”

Chad Hardin: “Most of the time I draw from imagination, but because of the complexity of this page [Qunari trying to board Isabela’s ship] I decided it would work better if I had photo reference. On this page are my nephews Jared (Varric) and Adam, my niece Melissa, my kids Erica, Tasey Michaela (Isabela) and Chad (Alistair), my friend’s daughter Amy, my wife Joy, and the neighborhood kids as Isabela’s pirate crew. (The crew member mooning the Qunari is out of my ol’ noodle.) I paid their modelling fee in pizza and root beer. Also, I had originally drawn cannons on Isabela’s ship, so if there are parts of it that look slightly wonky, chances are there was a cannon there.”

David Gaider: “Ever since the BioWare artists finally did a concept for female Qunari, I’ve been itching to include one in the game. It’s always slipped through my fingers, so I was going to be damned if I’d have a Qunari plot in a comic - without the same technical limitations - and not have one present.

Chad Hardin: “I had no idea this was the first time anyone outside of BioWare had seen a female Qunari.”

Michael Atiyeh: “I really like the lighting in this sequence [Isabela in her cell thinking ‘I haven’t eaten in days’], especially the strong white light and the characters in shadow.”

David Gaider: “The entire sequence of Rasaan interrogating Isabela was something I plotted out in detail when this series began. Here they discuss names - something treated in a manner peculiar to the Qunari, considering how much importance they apply to what things are called (and not called), because it forms the core of their identity. Isabela brushes it off, but as we find out later it’s also at the core of her identity. I liked that parallel.”

Alexander Freed: “To balance out the relatively static talking pages elsewhere in the issue, I hoped to make the interrogation and flashback sequences beautiful and full of information. I proposed an approach to Chad, and he wisely reshaped it into what you see here [the page with the scene where Isabela says ‘I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes’]. Anything that succeeds on these pages should be credited to him; anything that fails is my fault.”

Chad Hardin: “Probably the most challenging spread I have ever done. My friend Stacie Pitt was the model for Isabela on this page, and my wife Joy was Rasaan. I saved these pages [around the scene when Rasaan says ‘Mistakes can be corrected’] for myself.”

David Gaider: “Sten from Dragon Age: Origins becoming the new Arishok of the Qunari was something we'd planned even during Dragon Age 2. This was a great opportunity to show that, and also to show that Sten didn’t acquire horns even despite the makeover the Qunari received in DA2. Hornless Qunari are considered special, and Sten is no exception.”

Michael Atiyeh: “I think that David, Alex and Chad handled Isabela’s flashback [to when she was sold by her mother] in an interesting way, and it created a nice flow to the story.”

David Gaider: “This was a controversial scene [what happened to the slaves Isabela was transporting], the end result of a lot of discussions between me and Isabela’s original writer on the team, and it went through a lot of revisions over that time. It needed to fit with the story Isabela told the player in DA2, but fill in the blanks of what she didn’t tell. We didn’t want Isabela to be someone who became who she is because she was ‘broken’ but instead as a result of her own actions - yet also not be completely beyond redemption.”

Chad Hardin: “These were hard pages [as above] to draw. It was difficult knowing that events such as this are part of human history, such as the Zong massacre in 1781, where the British courts ordered the insurers to reimburse the crew of the Zong for financial losses caused by throwing slaves overboard when faced with a lack of water. Horrifying beyond words.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Here, Isabela visits here crew, and I wanted to play up that she was in the light and they were in a dark cell. The light streaming through the bars gave me the opportunity to highlight Brand, who also had dialogue in the scene.”

Alexander Freed: “I struggled to find a way for Varric to contribute to victory without distracting from Alistair and Sten’s big fight. I’m happy with the solution: a brazen lie seemed appropriate to the character without taking away from the main show.”

David Gaider: “I believe my original plan had Isabela’s and Alistair’s fight scenes happening separately, but I like how Alex intertwined them in the script and I especially like how this ends up highlighting the differences between their characters when their fights are resolved. Isabela is defiant, revealing her name not because Rasaan demands it but because it’s her choice. In both cases, mercy is strength.”

Michael Atiyeh: “The brush I created for the clouds really gave them a nice watercolor effect here [on the deck of the ship, Sten calling Alistair ‘kadan’]. That brush has become a staple in my toolbox.”

Alexander Freed: “With the strong theme of names running through these issues, I liked the notion that Isabela had outgrown being, well, ‘Isabela’. When her name comes up in Until We Sleep, it’s largely played with ambiguity.”

Until We Sleep annotations

Alexander Freed: “The story of ‘Arthur’ is one of my favorite minor sequences [Varric infiltrating and fighting his way into the fortress]. It tells us something about Varric and it delivers plot information - and it’s also a reminder that our heroes kill an awful lot of people during these series and cope with it in their own ways. In general, writing Varric let me skirt the edge of metacommentary, which I greatly enjoyed.”

David Gaider: “Varric, as always, is my ‘voice of the narrator’. Here he’s expressing some of my own amusement at Alistair’s growing list of peculiarities [‘Your majesty is quite the special snowflake’]. To think, back at the beginning of Dragon Age: Origins he was just the player’s goofy sidekick who grew up in a barn.”

Michael Atiyeh: “By the third series, Until We Sleep, I really started to have a complete feel for what I wanted the final art to look like. As an artist, it’s important to continue to evolve and grow. The close-up of Sten’s face [same page as above] is a perfect example of how I wanted the rendering on the characters to look.”

Alexander Freed: “David’s outline called for a short, somber reveal of the Calenhad story by Sten. Fueled by my desire to avoid ‘talking heads’ sequences, I scripted it as a full-on storytelling flashback. David made sure the history worked (at least from the Qunari point of view), and Chad did a beautiful job handling it in a mere two pages.”

David Gaider: “Blood is important in Dragon Age, as a theme. Here we tie in the dragon blood that was mentioned all the way back in The Silent Grove and explain what it means at last. I was a bit hesitant to tarnish the legend of Calenhad the Great in this way, but I comfort myself with the knowledge this tale is but a viewpoint and not necessarily the entire truth.”

Michael Atiyeh: “Titus melting the attacker is a great example of classic comicbook storytelling and exactly what made me fall in love with the medium.”

David Gaider: “I was really happy with how Chad handled the reveal of Mae as transgender [the scene with Mae in the cell]. My worry was that Varric finding her disrobed might be potentially titillating, but I think he handled it nicely. I only wish there was more time to have Mae properly respond to being exposed in this manner, even to a friend.”

Chad Hardin: “I originally drew Mae as female [same scene as above], then changed her anatomy, so the psychological violation and humiliation she felt would be the focus. Hope that came across.”

Chad Hardin: “When in doubt, have Bianca shoot it [Varric shooting the artifact].”

David Gaider: “This scene [Varric and Bianca the dwarf] with Varric was one I wanted to do for a very long time. We’ve hinted that Varric’s crossbow was named after a real person, someone he never wants to talk about. Now I finally had the chance to show why.”

Chad Hardin: “Of all my Dragon Age pages, this scene was hands down my favorite, because Varric is my favorite. It was awesome to get to draw Bianca in her dwarven form. These scenes give you a glimpse of the love Varric and Bianca shared. It doesn’t tell you the whole story, but you can assume plenty from what is shown. You get to see Varric mostly naked (you’re welcome), but most of all you witness Varric’s heartbreak. I felt privileged to draw it. I got so obsessed with drawing this page I did an entire watercolor painting based on the last panel [Varric gets up to leave, ‘This isn’t right’ - ? or perhaps the scene where he opens the door to leave].”

Alexander Freed: “Unreliable narrators are always tricky - done wrong, they can just confuse the reader. But I’m fairly happy with Varric’s lies throughout this series, most of which are used to downplay the emotional cost of events rather than whitewash the events themselves.”

Michael Atiyeh: “This palette worked perfectly [Varric standing in front of the doorway/portal in the Fade proper], but I can’t take all the credit because BioWare provided reference for the Fade. I added the hot orange energy for the doorway, which looks great with the sickly green sky.”

David Gaider: “This scene [Isabela’s Fade nightmare] was actually inspired by a fan named Allegra who did a cosplay as a Qunari version of Isabela. I knew I wanted something like this for Isabela’s Fade section of the comic, but it didn’t really solidify until I saw the cosplay.”

Chad Hardin: “Isabela is more affected by her encounter with Rasaan than we were led to believe. A portent of things to come?”

Michael Atiyeh: “I love this shot of Mae in the fourth panel [on the page where Isabela is affected by vines]. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what a great character she is in the series, and Chad captures her beautifully in this shot.”

Alexander Freed: “I saw this issue as a sort of downbeat victory lap. Over the course of the previous series, our protagonists largely came to terms with the inner demons the Fade confronts them with here. The fact they’ve come so far lets them win this last battle... but they still have scars that will never completely disappear.”

David Gaider: “Maric was in the first two novels I wrote for Dragon Age. Seeing Chad’s rendering of him as a regal, grown-up version of Alistair made me incredibly nostalgic. Some characters you just never let go of.”

Alexander Freed: “I feel Varric’s lines (‘tell yourself the stories you need to tell’ but ‘never live your own lies’) are the natural endpoint of all the exchanges he’s had with Alistair, starting from the end of Chapter 1 of The Silent Grove. And of course it plays off the story of ‘Arthur’, as well.’’

Chad Hardin: “I’m happy with the way Titus came off in these pages [Titus attacking and saying ‘The last magisters of Tevinter were so close’]. He looks threatening and powerful when fighting Alistair, Isabela and Varric, but genuinely confused by his inability to defeat Maric. Bye-bye, evil Jesus.”

Alexander Freed: “I can’t help but feel for Titus. He was unthinkably corrupt, but I see him as genuinely motivated by Tevinter’s glory. (The fact Alistair reads zealous ideology as a lust for power says a lot about both characters.)”

Michael Atiyeh: “I love the seamless transition of color from Titus’ magic to the dragon breath and then back into the orange remnants of his magic in the smoke. This was a really fun panel to color [Titus saying ‘Die by what wrought you’].”

David Gaider: “‘You are not the dreamer here. I am.’ I always have a scene or a line that’s in my head when I begin a tale, and this line of Maric’s was one I wanted all the way back when I started working on The Silent Grove.”

Chad Hardin: “I love this page [Maric and Alistair clasping hands]; Mike’s colors are spot on. We get to see all our heroes in an ideal state for the last time. This is the last Dragon Age page I saved for myself.”

David Gaider: “This scene kills me [Alistair destroying the Magrallen]. I knew it needed to happen; I knew I wanted it to happen even back when I began the story. Alistair lets Maric remain in the Fade rather than dragging him back to a world which has moved on. Alistair’s ready to move on, but forcing him to give up that hope... it makes me feel like a bad person.”

Chad Hardin: “Heartbreak for Alistair as he realizes that once again, as a king, he must kill: this time, his own father (granted, the Magrallen did most of the work). I really like how Maric crumbles away in the end. This was my last page, and the emotions on the page and in my studio were very final. Altogether, this was a year of my life in the making. On my last page, I wrote a thank you to everyone involved, the crew at Dark Horse and the crew at BioWare. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them again. It was a thrill. Finally, a huge thank-you to the Dragon Age fan community, whose support was overwhelmingly awesome.”

Michael Atiyeh: “As the story came to an end, I knew I was going to miss these characters. Writing these annotations reinforces the fact that I hope to work with this great creative team again one day. Many thanks to Dark Horse and BioWare for the opportunity to work on Dragon Age.”

Alexander Freed: “The tension between the art and the narration on this page [the one with Alistair sitting on his throne while nobles argue] is something you can only pull off in comics. Neither tells the full, bittersweet story alone. Similarly, these issues wouldn’t have been possible without everyone on the team; thanks to David, Chad, Michael, and everyone I lack space to list!”

Additional pages / art

Library Edition Volume 1 also came with some additional pages, with additional art and commentary. These are as follows (I’m including them for the sake of completion, click the links to see):

1. Alistair and dragon concepts

2. Rasaan and Maevaris concepts

3. Sten, Titus and Yavana concepts

4. A series of cover pages 1

5. A series of cover pages 2

In case anyone has trouble reading the notes that accompany these images, I’ve transcribed them below:

1. Dragon Age Sketch Book

Alistair Concept

Dragon Age / Dark Horse

Chad Hardin: “The headshot of Alistair is from a finished sketch with a rejected armor design. In order to save time, the redrawing was completed on the computer, where tweaks and changes are quick and easy, if somewhat less glorious.”

[Dragon] Head #1 / Head #2

Chad Hardin: “Everyone liked this dragon sketch so much that Dark Horse printed it for signings at conventions. You can see I did multiple proposals for the dragon’s head. It was more effective than drawing the body over and over.”

2. [arrow pointing to Mae’s sleeve] concealed [I think that’s what it says anyway] daggers / shurikens?

Chad Hardin: “When designing Rasaan and Maevaris, I wasn’t exactly sure how their roles would play out in the series. Maevaris’ outfit was inspired by brothel madams of the Wild West. I thought it would be cool to have some weapons concealed in the formal wear. These never came into play in the series, but they were there in my mind.”

3. Chad Hardin: “Although we only see Titus in his battle garb in one issue, I really liked the design of his armor. The sketch of Yavana was done on the fly and served as both a rough preliminary sketch and as a panel layout. You have to work hard and smart in comics to keep up with the deadlines.”

4. Cover Artist Anthony Palumbo: “This was my first assignment for Dark Horse, and I was both excited and nervous. I drew pencil sketches of the main characters, scanned them and played with different arrangements, poses and color schemes in Photoshop.”

5. Anthony Palumbo: “Fellow illustrator Winona Nelson helped me by sitting for photo reference. I created the mock-jewelry with gold-painted Sculpey. That’s a quick photo of my own gaping maw, to help with the image of Varric.”

#dragon age #bioware #video games #artevalentinapaz #alistair theirin #fav warden #morrigan #queen of my heart #long post #longpost

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