Tin Foil Skirt and Thigh-High Boots - Ashley Williams Thread

deleted

Ashley is pretty much exclusively a man's name in the UK. I thought it was a silly name for a woman when I first played Mass Effect, but now I associate it with the greatest of squadmates!

So I just finished the Normandy crash site mission. That was such an emotional mission it was not even funny. People might think its not that big of a deal but for me personally. Seeing Pressly and Ashley in those memory flashes almost made me cry. I never realized how painful it was to lose them. Especially Ash. I can here her say "You be careful, Skipper!".

Oh the feels.... :sob:

I will never get why leaving Liara behind is not an option. And as much as I like Ash in ME1, she is so weak in ME3 romanced (I feel she is even worse if not romanced), that I find it better to keep Kaidan alive since he is a much more well rounded character with development and interesting dialogue. It still annoys me Ash says very little on the Normandy and even after Leviathan DLC she barely seems upset I nearly died. I'm not quite sure why Ash got the shaft in ME3. Even her Citadel scenes are weak if you ask me.

It doesn't matter regardless because my canon broshep has no romance in the trilogy, so I just pick Kaidan. 

Yea I will never understand why Liara couldn't get let behind either. I guess the bioware team was so obsessed with the blue asari that they wanna make sure that she's the most important one.

And yea it sucks like hell to leave Ashley behind. I hate it so much. I miss the convos with her. Kaidan yes definitely had a better story and character development than Ashley. While Ashley always gets the short end of the stick. Its really ridiculous if you ask me. I thought her story especially in ME1 was very interesting to me. It could've evolve even more throughout the series. I'm starting to feel like bioware reminds me of the council so much. Their protection and love for aliens over humans.

Liara is obviously Bioware's favorite character. Its so painfully obvious in ME2 and in ME3 she gets the most fan servicey romance scene to boot. She also has a ton of plot armor. I hate this character so much. Probably my most hated video game character ever.

Of all my playthroughs of the ME trilogy (I have done quite a few), I have saved Ashley four times. The first time I didn't romance her and felt she added nothing besides a reused sister arc again. I thought a romance would make her more interesting. And it does a little bit but not by much. I cheated on her in this run because my Shepard was a douche. I did a run where I was loyal to her because I thought that would help her case. This was the best outcome for Ash/Shepard, but even then it felt lacking. Some time had past since I did this run and I thought to myself, maybe I missed something with her romance so I did it again in ME3. And nope, its still feels really lacking in general. Her dialogue is mostly weak, the sister arc is boring, and the fact that she doesn't really talk/interact with anyone on the Normandy really hurts her. Even in the party she is very uninteresting, and I really didn't like her acting like a dumb school girl over Vega. It was out of character for her. 

I don't get why Bioware pushed her in the promo trailers but did such a poor job writing her in ME3. It seems they spent more time on her makeover than her character. I understand there was even going to be an instance where she talks about believing in god, but it was removed to not offend anyone. I'm just really disappointed in Ash's ME3 portrayal after it was so good in ME1. I basically felt bad killing Kaidan for her because she is so weak in ME3. And your comment about Bioware being like the Council is a good one. But I think many fans are also guilty of that. Especially since the aliens act just as human (if not more so) than the actual humans.

And lastly, I am more surprised people don't mention that Ash is totally cool with Shepard cheating with Tali (because she sees her like a sister), but has a bigger issue if you cheat with Miranda or Jack. She also is upset if Tali dies in ME3. These are subtle instances to how she changes. Which is good, but its not enough if you ask me. Also, kind of surprising she has almost no scenes with Liara in ME3. But I think that's for the better. The less Liara the better. 

I just don't understand what is the big deal with her being religious that offends people. It just makes no sense at all. That is one of the features that make her such a great character to begin with along with being an amazing soldier despite how the Alliance treated her family which I think it was very wrong of them. But nobody seems to care about that at all. It makes me sick that people just always wanna throw out the religious part just because it "offends" them. Well I got news flash for you. The world isn't always gonna cater to you.

Its like once a character is "religious" all of a sudden she or he is the evil person or someone that offends them. Its a bunch of bull.


Gosh I'm ranting again. I do apologize.

Thane is part of a fake religion and therefore immune to criticism.  Ash is conceivably from a known religion and, tbh, there's a lot of backlash against organized religion these days, with more and more people moving away from it.  It probably plays into why BioWare chose to move away from it with her character, even though I think it's stupid.  Variety in characterization is what makes them all so interesting.

Actually Christianity is still a fairly major religion, or at least, Roman Catholicism. If you look into the Cerberus backstory, they actually assassinated the Pope in hopes of replacing him with one more in-line with militarizing Humanity (which implies that the Pope held considerable power over people and politics). And Cerberus is only slightly older than Shepard, so...

I think BioWare is just a company that likes to avoid as much conflict as possible (They're Canadian, after all), so throwing in using a major religion's deity's name being "used in vain", could've just been seen as an unnecessary risk.

I got to meet the real Ashley this past weekend; the real voice anyway. Kimberly Brooks was in Dallas for Fan Expo, and with the "bigger" names (Momoa, Affleck, Goldblum, and others) there she had a pretty small crowd. She is a pretty fun person to talk to, even for only a few minutes.

Aeriel Shepard and Ashley Williams. Well mostly Ash!