Arabella reference 2018

It's been a while since I first made Arabella, so I figured it was getting to the point where it's time to give her a slightly updated look. I was pretty constantly "forgetting" to draw her coat on her, anyway. 

So for anyone who doesn't know her yet, here's an introduction: Yes, it's Arabella, like the Arctic Monkey's song, and yes, her lips really are like the galaxy's edge. 

Age: 28
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 172lbs, and most of that is well-maintained muscle. 
Occupation: Mercenary, sometimes bodyguard, very occasionally bounty hunter- if she's really strapped for cash.

Arabella started her life on a far removed planet in the southern ranching systems of the irken empire. While her early years were filled with both basic military training and learning the ins and outs of how to raise and farm the native organic wildlife, it was always the combat she found easy, and the ranching she found a bore. After a few years and with a lot of focus, she managed to get herself a scholarship to attend the academy on Irk, the center of the empire's galactic expansion campaign. Easily the top of her class and only growing taller, loving and feeling at ease with the environment she was growing up in, she was eventually landed with a small squad and one C.O. on one of Vort's colony planets, during some of the last legs of the invasion. Though by the time she had gotten there the firefight had calmed down, the last tenacious holdouts of the resistance in the north were proving troublesome to the empire. With her new rank of corporal under her belt, and feeling some doubt as to whether or not she was really ready to be taking a command (not least of all on a planet the empire had technically signed an armistice with), her squad held down a fortified area for a number of months with little outside supply from the empire. It would have been an impressive term of service, if not for an incident during their last month that left her entire squad crippled or dead, and Arabella traumatized and without any remaining confidence in her ability to command. The bureaucracy and following back and forth infighting with the empire to get her squad the appropriate treatment for their injuries left her disillusioned with irken society, and not long after, she quit the army and struck out on her own. 

She bounced around space for a while, learning more about culture outside the empire, coming to regret her association with the irken warmachine along with learning a lot more about herself and her own habits. She had her PAK re-coded in a small lab on a planet called Space Vegas- unaffiliated with any empire, and a great place to settle into anonymity. After a shotgun marriage and divorce on friendly terms with a vortian nuclear physicist, she ended up with her own apartment on the planet- and decided that it was a comfortable place to settle down to stay. Vegas has a lot of thoroughfare, and it was never difficult to find work or entertainment there. Arabella makes a point still to stay as far away from the empire as possible- to protect her civilian life, and to avoid contributing any further to irken society- the only brush she's had with it since has been getting to know her girlfriend, Persephone, a reluctant concubine of Tallest Red. 

Arabella is a mix of gung-ho action hero and charming down-to-earth professional. She's the type who isn't going to have a problem with you until you strike out at the undeserving- in which event she's probably three steps away from punching you in the face. She watches a lot of film and television in her spare time and though she wouldn't consider herself a genius, she has ended up with a fairly well-rounded knowledge of many things because of this habit. She enjoys cooking and drinking socially.

Her biggest flaw is her tendency to be recklessly self-sacrificing, due to guilt over her past and a feeling of horrible responsibility for what happened to her squad years before. For this reason also, when in dangerous situations she vastly prefers to work alone. 

Musical themes: 
"Arabella" - The Arctic Monkeys www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn6-TI… 
"Revolution Lover" - Left at London www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFsPWV…
"Dream Machines" - Big Deal www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcy5Tq…