sachehund: theivorytowercrumbles: There are...

23rd February 2012

Photoset reblogged from Hair of the Dog with 64 notes

theivorytowercrumbles:

There are times when I don’t think Aria gets enough appreciation from the fandom at large.

This is Aria T’Loak. She’s voiced by Carrie-Anne Moss. You know, Trinity from the Matrix.

In the middle of the Terminus Systems, considered to be the lawless, most dangerous part of the galaxy, she runs the show. The show. Everyone wants Omega Station. The Shadow Broker, The Illusive Man, you name it, they want what she has. She set up a long con - we’re talking centuries here - on Patriarch (who used to run the place, but no one even remembers his real name anymore because of her) and then decided to keep him around like her own personal pet Scarface.

Do you know what Thane Krios recommends to deal with a krogan? A bomb. But Aria doesn’t give a fuck, because she has the biotics to crush half a krogan skeleton and live to tell the tale. While other asari are busy trading stocks on Illium and dancing on Thessia, she’s running the largest criminal empire from her fine couch in Afterlife. She’s not afraid of Justicars or Ardat-Yakshi. Despite being a thousand years old, she still has her surname because she knows Aria “Don’t Fuck With Me” T’Loak sounds better than Matriarch Aria. Or Aleena. Bioware hasn’t confirmed that one yet.

She’s parked right outside the Omega-4 Relay when everything goes to hell and her response is to punch an Adjutant in the face. What’s an Adjutant? It’s a husk so powerful it broke the Mass Effect 3 physics engine, so they had to just keep it in the comics. Suck on that, TIM.

And then I remember that not everyone follows this blog for Mass Effect and I will slink back into my video games corner after leaving this on your dashboard. Art is by the lovely nihilnovisubsole.

Rebogging because fuck you, it’s Aria.

Underappreciated like woah. The woman is the essence of McBadAss, has a fantastically eccentric attitude, almost entirely thanks to Carrie-Anne Moss. She delivers lines that COULD have very easily translated to a depth-less, otherwise T&A ‘just here to give the dudes something to ‘bate to’ femdom character, and made this lady vibrant.

Like with a lot of female characters in ME, she has moments of ‘I have sweaty typical-gamer-manballs rubbing all over my lines’ that just made me rub my head a little (i was hoping she was never a stripper BUT I GUESS ALL ASARI MAIDENS ARE STRIPPERS BECAUSE </sweatymanballs> and it can’t possibly be that she just fought her way up the chain’o’command— except she did AND stripped AND oh god male fantasy overload). However… my god, her actress, animation director, and the animators sold her as something that goes beyond those unfortunate origins. As a result, she always stood out to me as one of the best characters in ME2.

Best. BEST. There is no debate, there is no discussion.

She is no compromises, no bullshit, no nothing. She was one of very, very few females whose presence, demeanor, and vocal range alone sold her oversexed outfit*, at least in terms of her ‘untouchable’ status, and I love— love, adore— that it had the feel of rubbing peoples’ faces in it.

Think I want you because of how I dress? I wink in the wrong direction and you automatically turn into a fine red mist, champ. Get the fuck out.

And she acted the part.

She’s a lady who oozes an aura of, Stare all your want, but take your wanky case of manpain and walk it right out the damn door. And. And. I have so many feels. And. I love her.

She is, with the help of many individuals, one of which of whom is thankfully an insanely talented woman (which is a breath of fresh air on a writing staff that has far too many men for its own good, and it shows, FREQUENTLY), a character whose concept could have died like a heap of rotting meat on the side of the Epic Fiction Highway because of poor execution— but she didn’t. Moss and the animators outshined the typical-male-writer-manballs smeared around on so many of the female characters, took lines that could have come off as wildly idiotic and made them lavishly eccentric, and helped create a personality that truly deserves to lord over that fucked-up empire she claims as her own. And that, honestly, makes me happy.

I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ON THIS, IS THAT ALRIGHT?

Also: holy fuck the SUIT. NIHILNOICAN’TSPELLYOURNAMERIGHTNOW BUT— yes. yes this.

* (for reference: in the case of Jack, the writers can say ‘well she doesn’t care, she’s flippant about sex and wants to show her tattoos and ALL WOMEN WHO GO THROUGH EXCESSIVE TRAUMA CRAVE SEX RITE?’ when in reality, someone had a cyberpunk fetish and added a dose of barely-covered boobs (EDGY!). Miranda, she’s insecure about who she is and etcetcetc (tacked on backstory to make her character make sense goes here) and as a result, boobs. Samara— okay, Samara’s allowed, she’s 900, if she’s that stacked, sure, lord it over people— but I was still a little, uh. Yeah. Also! Liara’s boobs hit Benezia proportions in the span of a couple years because well, boobs. Really, there is no denying that there are Standardized Men Happening Here. In every single case. And now it’s happened to Ashley, hooray ;p)