with all my other miis, i try to spend as little time on them (in other words, use little to no face paint) but i HAD to put some effort into kokushibo >_<
i’ll probably clean him up/edit him a bit more later.. but right now i need him OUT OF MY SIGHT!!
Very silly/indulgent SamHarriet doodle for Christmas
Hellen typically does not care one single bit about romance. But watching Sam and Harriet be idiots pisses her off so much that she tries to push them together just to stop her own suffering on the occasional visit to Sam
I got a really weird bug where Hellen seemed to permanently be in the "sandwich" status. I scoured the wiki and the discord trying to figure out what the sandwich did. (I don't know).
What made you fall in love with Hellen? In my opinion, you’re like, THE Sam x Hellen person, so I have to ask how you managed to fall so in love with this cleaver swinging woman.
Cracks knuckles.
Well first, my love for Hellen, and by extension, my love for this game, starts the same way I get into most media I now love: by me being a thirsty bitch.
I have insomnia. I forget manlybadasshero exists but sometimes, he will so rarely come up in my recs, and his videos with his quiet voice are great for half-asleep trancing out. So I click his Look Outside video and oops it's actually interesting so I'm not trying to sleep at all now and oh my god oh my god oh my god who is that beautiful tall broad shouldered woman suddenly I am SO invested.
So then, I go to tumblr, and I search, curious to see fan content about the game. I read a few fics (thank you pangolin), suddenly I am now SO interested in this premise I buy the game myself bc I do genuinely love RPGS, and like an angel sent from god to give me the best first impression experience of this game ever, beautiful scary butch shows up at my door, day 2, first playthrough. Needless to say I then proceeded to get charmed by the entire game and its characters, but especially her. My love of women built like shit brickhouses has lead me in the right direction once more it seems.
Now, for the essay that's my actual serious answer on why I latched onto her, both as objectively good reading and also just the parts of her character that hit my favorites buttons regardless.
"She's a serial killer, but." - Frankie 2025. - I admit, I will admit, I . Thought the serial killer thing was a purposeful red herring. Before Frankie confirmed it on stream. I know she's killed SOMEONE, we have her saying it with the knife interaction, but well. There's. A lot of ways to kill people without being a serial killer. I liked the mystique of wondering what life she leads where that'd happen. Look it was just so on the nose okay I thought it was a bit. I thought the joke is she looks like one but isn't. It's relevant to the game's themes. But...know that we know...
I like it, a lot, a lot lot better than if she wasn't. When I first heard it I didn't handle it well because I was most scared of one thing: I didn't want her to be boring. I didn't want a "for the evils" killer, I didn't want something stereotypical and bland. I feared for future updates.
But! No. One of the most interesting things about Hellen is that she isn't like stereotypical serial killers- she's not really...evil? She's not needlessly violent, she doesn't even really seem to be that into it? She has her bloodlust, which to quote that one stream, she's in control of and prides herself on her control of, and we know she fantasizes about violence (dialogue about the Visitor) and that stream implies she's definitely thought about hurting Sam before. But it doesn't seem like she like...revels in it? It seems partially involuntary or at least neutral on the fantasy front, and the only time to my knowledge in-game we see suggest violence is when it's warranted (She tells Sam they can still kill Leigh if she's present when recruiting her which...hey. Leigh attacked them first. She's kinda fair for that one) or fictional (Lyle's DND campaigns, Wraithscourge).
It's a part of her, but...it's not all of her? She has SO much personality out of her killing, which paired with that nontraditional take on it, I think makes her so much more interesting. Mostly because she's still very mysterious, and you can take her actions/words in so many different ways.
The gardening. The fact that she specifies why she does it, and it's a nurturing motive- I always found this fascinating, it creates a really interesting contrast between the two things that define her most. One takes lives, one creates them. Why? Does she just happen to do both? Is it to prove to herself/others she isn't all harmful and can be nurturing? Does she view it as some karmic balance?
I also think she has such an interesting view on the Visitor. She both thinks it was beautiful, and that looking is a good thing (saying to Beryl "There are worse things..."), but also negatively views what it did to her. One thing we see time and time again is when Hellen gets flustered/annoyed, she resorts to be curt and mean, and she gets this way when prompted about the mask or her eating in the bathroom. That sort of love-hate vs. the outright fear or worship we see in others is really interesting.
On that note, her actual personality is so fun. She's awkward, alternating between very casual ("piss off", "damn, "can I crash here") and somewhat oddly formal (not using contractions sometimes, really cryptic ass sentences). She's not...rude, per say, in fact she's very considerate. She clearly makes an attempt to not be a burden on Sam in gratitude for being allowed in, such as doing everyone's dishes and being the only companion (I think?) who won't ask for food when she's hungry.
Most of her being "rude" is just her getting short when you pry (the above "what are these questions", these below) or knowingly annoy her (playing the crossword game, Dan bothering her). Respect her boundaries, and she's quite chill!
...If she's not flustered.
I also don't want to necessarily boil her down to a "gentle giant" some tend to make her, because I feel that's a bit of a shallow take, but I do enjoy that we get to see the milder side of her that does genuinely desire connection. Whether it be with the kids (Joel, Rat Baby) or fellow adults (her entire quest is about letting Sam in, to the point he even acknowledges how intentionally vulnerable she is being and how she is letting him get to know her, her projection onto Audrey, letting Morton ramble to her). She's very sweet to those she likes! Hell, she even tells Sam in her quest one of his best features is his compassion to more than just plants...I like to think she's referring to him letting her in, since she really did have nowhere else to go.
Hell, it's kind of a big move on Sam's part, considering you kinda can't be blamed for not trusting her. Some of the others sure don't, and even Sam himself seems like he can be, if you choose that dialogue, frightened by her.
Clearly, she is aware of this, and how he's treated her means a lot. For as few connections as she seems to make, she seems to value the ones she has dearly. Not to mention the unwavering loyalty: she makes suggestions a few times such as with recruiting Papineau and suggesting you kill Leigh, but never overrides or insults Sam's choices. She says she'll follow him, she listens if he tells her to fall back.
Less poignantly, she is also, frankly, just kind of a dork sometimes. There's something really fun to a killer who isn't a suave, smooth operator, you know? She's definitely scary and very capable of being so on purpose, but she, like anyone, has moments of excitement or embarrassment or anger, etc. Even if she tries to be stoic.
Her reaction to the dagger and hellsword come to mind, but my particular favorite is how she seems to act disinterested/ambivalent to Lyle's campaign...
...But she seems awfully invested...
God I love her DND lines so much. It really is very revealing, at times.
Hellen has a line during the campaign that piqued my interest:
...What does a serial killer consider such crimes, I wonder? I mean, one thing I find interesting about Hellen is we don't really get to see how she feels about her own killing, or at least not very obviously. It's fascinating how she seems also detached from it? Like it's mundane for her. She says she's not noble to Sam in the quest, and I think that's pretty fitting if we imagine she's not talking about plants here- she's no vigilante, her killing isn't righteous or moral. Hell, her entire beef with Papineau, from my interpretation, is that he looks down on her for desiring to kill...and yet, he does the very same, but he tries to argue it's okay because he's killing the "right" people, including her it seems.
Something interesting I put together, uh, just now, actually. Is, hey, that punishable by death line? It happens when the Ignatus, is revealed to be the main antagonist, Zalmoxis, all along, initially presented as an ally.
...You know how you can betray Hellen? Not watering that damn plant.
Sure, we don't really get any words from her at this point. She's beyond it, she has one mission in mind and it's mcmurdering Sam into next Friday. She did, over and over (and over...and over...and over...) tell him how important that plant is to her (whether or not it's about the plant itself, or the experience she is sharing with him, is vague. But I think the plant itself isn't what's so important, it's moreso the act of doing this with him for her), makes it a point about how she's letting him into a part of her life, being vulnerable, having heart to hearts with him...
See, rejection would be one thing. Hell, if Sam says he don't wanna do this at the start of the question, she fully understands and drops it.
...But forgetting. FORGETTING? It's callous. It's carelessness. It's an absolute, utter disregard for something she clearly considers incredibly important and setting herself up for a lot of hurt in trying to earnestly connect with him and let herself be known. That's a betrayal of trust, ain't it?
So well...Crime punishable by death via shears. I guess. I also have to wonder how voluntary this is, given she is referred to as "The Maniac" in battle and the death message, not her name...
Is Sam trying to distance himself from being the reason she's doing this? Did she snap from the hurt? (Frankie did imply in that one stream she partially doesn't like Leigh because she's scared of being like her...that is, not in control and violent). Is she even aware of what she's doing? Is this being cursed making her more volatile than normal due to heightened emotion?
Well anyways. I can't think of a neat way to put a bow on all this, and I'm not gonna get started on Sam/Hellen because 1. that could be it's own essay, 2. I don't wanna distract from my analysis being focused on her and all her interactions, and 3. for all I am smellen brained, one of the joys of these two to me is that they work just as well as friends too. In fact, I'm a big fan of the sort of "right hand man" position she can take with Sam (in my opinion). That's his bodyguard, his second in command, his trusted ally who definitely never hesitates in telling him he's being stupid. She's overall just such an interesting character for the questions she invokes, such a non typical take on a serial killer character, and above all else, she is, incredibly goddamn endearing.
can you. Draw phillippe getting a little smooch or something… idk I think it’d be funny if he got like. Uncharacteristically flustered
A GIRL(me) CAN DREAM
Thank you for rhis ask . I won a lottery of sorts.
I admit my horrible anxiety makes me struggle with my whimsy with the yumeshipping esk stuff w em. because "it'd be out of character wouldnt it." but . whimsy is whimsy . YOU ! too can be the favorite. Anyways yeah heart to heart aside. had fun with it I like his expressions in it
Sam and his spider boyfriend/bodyguard that will kill anything or anyone for him. In bloodiest of fashions. Also Sam gets to be violent for him too of course. Apocalypse power freak couple. Short ramble under cut.
Okay real though so WHY did Frankie make Lyle such a goddamn powerhouse like dear god. Lyle Kicks is actually busted as hell, he stayed on my team all the way to endgame. Come home covered in blood and immediately go sit down for their next M&W session.
Lest we forget that this guy is bullied by children btw. Absolutely spineless in every way besides combat. Maybe thats why he's ripping other people's out-
tangentwithtanner
andulkaphoto
vaporwave
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