#yet again I am not immune to being in love with prosecutors in these games

[turnaboutstar]

he does something similar to edgeworth when he gets cornered hehe

[januskrug]

10 Favorite Female Characters

Started as a reblog from @lynmars79 , but it has become a “thing” so I’m putting this in its own post to avoid stretching everyone’s dash. There will be spoilers for video games, books, and tv shows; to avoid you’ll want to avoid the blurbs and just enjoy the names and pictures.

“RULES: write your 10 favorite female characters from 10 different fandoms and tag 10 people.”

10: Ms. Pauling, Team Fortress 2

Ms. Pauling makes the list by being both a fascinating character with her fiction of origin, Team Fortress 2, as well as the game’s first Knight of Cerberus. Introduced as the overworked assistant to the mysterious “Administrator”, Ms Pauling was depicted as a sensible, inexperienced-yet-capable office worker who just happened to be both ethically alright with and quite skilled at disposing of people whom the Administrator decided were more troublesome alive than dead. Even in the insane world of Team Fortress 2, Ms. Pauling stood out as ruthlessly competent and loyal to the shadowy powers that be, easily manipulating people around her and expertly disposing of evidence that would ruin her boss’ plans, all with the intent of rising to the top alongside them. Her starring role in the TF2 comics and the final cinematic short released by the team only served to expand on her nature as one of the most competent and capable characters in a fascinating series.

9: Satya “Symmetra” Vaswani, Overwatch

Overwatch is one of my favorite games right now, and it has a host of awesome ladies, but by far my favorite of them from a story standpoint has to be Symmetra. A brilliant autistic girl and amputee (though we do not know when she lost her left arm, particularily if it was before or after she was recruited), from the slums of futuristic India, Satya was recruited by the mega-corporation known as Vishkar at a young age, and all but raised within the company to become one of their finest hard-light architects. Her upbringing engendered great loyalty in the young woman as she mastered the cutting edge technology developed by Vishkar, and she dreamed of using the technology to create a new world for humanity, one of perfect order where suffering is nothing more than a distant memory. So capable did she become that Vishkar created a special costume and armor so that she could be sent on clandestine missions to uphold Vishkar’s interests and expand its influence in foreign nations. After the events of her first comic however, Satya is questioning if Vishkar’s path is truly the correct one.

Symmetra fascinates me as one of Overwatch’s most complex characters in general, not just the female ones. Her struggles between her loyalty to Vishkar and growing recognition that it may not be the benevolent overlord it is painted as resonate deeply, and I am a sucker for stories of a good person stuck in a bad environment with the potential to grow into a true hero.

8: Veronica Santangelo, Fallout New Vegas

Veronica is a member of the dwindling west coast Brotherhood of Steel by the time she meets Courier Six in the Nevada desert. Spending most of her time outside the Brotherhood’s bunker in order to scavenge for tech and supplies, Veronica is probably the most forward thinking and levelheaded member of the nearly extinct force that was once the most feared in the former southwestern united states. Yet another woman who’s struggle largely is due to conflicting loyalties; the Brotherhood is her family, both in blood and love, but their refusal to grow beyond what they are as they slowly die breaks her heart, as does their refusal to accept her as a lesbian since they feel every brotherhood member’s duty is to breed another generation, since they refuse to recruit outsiders or change any of their failed doctrine. There are no happy endings for Veronica, and that hit me harder than any other companion story in New Vegas. I cared for her in ways I didn’t with the other companions, and she provides a stark reminder that in the wasteland, there are no truly happy endings.

7: Aveline Vallen, Dragon Age 2

Aveline from Dragon Age stands out in the game that features her as the Serious One and probably my favorite version of the “Mom friend” in fiction. After joining the Hawke family in their flight from blight-doomed Fereldan, she essentially adopts the main character as a little sibling that needs to be watched out for. She mutters, complains, and advises Hawke even as she steadfastly marches at his side in full armor, intent on keeping them safe from harm, even after she rises to Captain of the Kirkwall city guard. She is an amazing straight man in nearly every scene, a much needed voice of reason among the companions, and her special companion quest where you get to wingman for her on the most ridiculously poorly thought out date ever is probably among my favorite Dragon Age moments across the entire series.

Also she can become immune to boss phase transition stuns and that is the most badass thing ever.

6: Karrin Murphy, Dresden Files

In a series filled with magic users, monsters, and gods, Karrin Murphy is the badass normal to end all badass normals. Introduced as the reasonable police officer willing to take a risk and hire a Wizard out of the phone book to help with strange cases on the Chicago PD files, throughout the series Karrin shows again and again why the smarter supernatural beings in the universe are wary of humans even as they prey on them. She doesn’t know magic, she doesn’t have super strength, and only occasionally will deign to pick up a magical artifact to lay down an ass kicking, as she prefers human made weapons like her signature p90 submachine gun, sometimes loaded with special ammo depending on what she’s up against. She’s very much a paladin who shines on her own alongside literal holy knights of god in the series, to the point she was scouted by them before turning it down. Her dedication to protecting her friends and the innocents of chicago gives her the strength that other characters need supernatural sources of, and it’s all wrapped up in 5 foot blond package of kickass and dedication to the rule of law.

5: Makoto Niijima, Persona 5

Makoto is definitely my favorite lady from the Persona series, and that’s saying something since the long running rpg series has had some great ones. Makoto stood out to me in the dichotomy with how awkward she is in social situations (typical for a japanese student valedictorian dedicated to their studies) and how effective she is when she has a clear goal put before her. The moment where she joins the Phantom Thieves is a big one for the team, as she quickly realizes that while the protagonist provides leadership, he doesn’t provide strategy, and quickly starts analyzing situations and filling a much needed gap. Her connection to the metaplot is also incredibly strong; as the little sister of the chief prosecutor on the phantom thieves’ case, Makoto gets to struggle not only with her sense of identity but also with familial loyalty, and the game makes a decent case of the idea that, perhaps, she’s the traitor who sold you out. Finally, in a genre that so often uses the “Silk hiding steel” trope, I’d argue that Makoto is Steel hiding Silk, as her intimidating and business like ways cover a softer side around her found family that she will do anything to protect and guide, both as their friend and their student council president.

4: Ashley Williams, Mass Effect.

Ashley is my #1 bioware love interest because I honestly feel like she’s the most three dimensional and believable of them all. A career soldier trying to wipe away an undeserved black mark on her family name, she is dedicated, honorable, and close minded early on, and this sets her up for a fantastic growth arc that ends with her becoming a Spectre second only to Commander Shepard.

Ashley starts off with her main obvious traits being untrusting of aliens and desperate to prove herself as a soldier Earth can be proud of. However, her feelings towards aliens are not simple bigotry, but a belief that they are in fact too human; and thus when the chips are down likely to be happy to sell out humanity to save their own skins (a fear that proves to be well founded come mass effect 3). However, the ability of the player to influence her though process, taking the high road, fighting alongside alien races, Ashley comes around by the 2/3 point of the first game, willing to fight to protect her alien comrades just as hard as she would any human, eventually adopting Paragon Shepard’s view that all life is worthy as she fights at his side. Her absence in mass effect 2 and the rocky step in the friendship/romance that it takes is fully understandable to me; Shepard is wearing Cerberus colors, a terrorist organization that performs terrible experiments on living beings and assassinates politicians that investigate it, and that believable rockiness continues on into the third game when they rejoin to stop the Reapers. She watched Shepard die, only to have them come back filled with Cerberus tech, and even when she accepts that yes, this is indeed actually Commander Shepard, who knows what that tech can do? Finally she is asked to choose between her pragmatism and her faith in Shepard as the hero of the galaxy, and she overcomes it, saving the lives of the council and following Shepard all the way to the end. 

I 100% headcanon a happy ending after the destroy ending because, dammit, Mac Walters cannot take that from me.

3: Maiev Shadowsong, Warcraft

Maiev Shadowsong is absolutely my favorite female character across blizzard franchises, and it’s a damn crime that they didn’t use her more in Legion, though at least they were smart enough to realize that her portrayal in the novels was friggin’ stupid and gloss over them. A driven, harsh jailor of the Kaldorei’s greatest traitors and criminals, chief among them Illidan Stormrage, she goes too far in a believably delicious way as she is antagonized again and again throughout the strategy games. From Tyrande shooting her way through the Watchers to release Illidan, to the loss of so many of her Warden sisters including, let’s be honest, her beloved Naisha, to having to choke down Tyrande’s presence in the reinforcements who come to aid her in capturing Illidan, she is neither hero nor villain but simply a narrative force, dedicated to justice and seething with rage at those who get in her way. No warcraft character gets as many headcanon hours out of my head that she does.

2: Elisa Maza, Gargoyles

Every character on Disney’s Gargoyles was fantastic. Elisa is the best of an amazing group. A detective in New York who stumbles across the titular Gargoyles and becomes their best ally in a strange, new world because she recognizes their nobility, and who with nothing more than a firearm and solid martial arts training of the kind you’d need as a woman in the NYPD, stands by her friends against whatever threat comes at them. She fills the role of guide to the new world, particularily the rules and laws that govern it, source of supplies for her friends who can’t just head down to the store themselves, and as a thorn in the side of every human force seeking to abuse the gargoyles since, unlike them, she is very much a public figure who has the power to Ask Questions that get in the Official Record. Her mixed lineage provides fascinating stories, and her loyalty to those who need her and refusal to back down in the face of danger garners the respect of hero, villian, and viewer alike. She’s featured in nearly every episode, and those that don’t have a lot of her suffer for the loss.

1: Esme “Granny” Weatherwax, Discworld

Granny Weatherwax is the ur-witch. She lives alone in the woods in a strange looking cottage, the villagers for miles around fear her temper, she’s grouchy, eternally single and fine with it, snaps at anyone who says something stupid in her presence (And oh boy does she have a wide and well-defined view of stupidity), and is one of the greatest heroes the Disc has ever known. Not in the Cohen the Barbarian sense, but in the “standing between the bad guys and the little guys” sense. When something threatens the lands under her care, be it treacherous nobles, fair folk, vampires, or anything else foolish enough to disturb her idea of order and calm. it can be sure to have a run in with a Granny Weatherwax who can’t be having with this. It is easy to see that despite her craggy demeanor, she cares deeply for the people who live under her care, serving as a healer, veterinarian, and midwife, and feeling any loss that inevitably comes with the same power as those who suffered it. For all her magic and headology, Granny is just so very human, and that makes what she does even more incredible. The world would be in a better place if we stopped to think once in a while what Granny would say about what we’re doing.

Tagging: You’re all adults. I did enjoy this exercise, so I encourage anyone considering it to go in and do it. We need more celebration of awesome ladies in fiction.