#Helena Eagen

[hollypunkers]

Helly would have been curious, Helly wouldn’t have controlled her emotions, Helly would have rolled in the shit just to fuck with her outie. That ain’t my girl. That’s a new girl, and I am obsessed with her.

[devilmachine]

[lightavii]

when i was watching severance s2e2 with my friends and we got to the scene of helena watching the kiss it freaked me OUT. I was on that helena is pretending to be helly theory so I was like Ew, oh my god, she’s evil, she knows about the kiss, she’s totally studying it to replicate those feelings convincingly when she goes down—

And then my friend just said “Was that her first kiss?” And it completely reshaped the way I saw the scene. Because oh. Oh. :(

Different interpretations are wild man

[whovianbuffalo]

Severance s1 (and the s1 trailer) uses I Monster, Daydream in Blue, which samples "Daydream" by The Wallace Collection, which uses the melody from the finale of Swan Lake.

Odelle attends the ball in disguise as Odette in order to trick the prince into marrying her.

The original ending of Swan Lake leaves it ambiguous as to whether Odette survives or not.

[lissa]

everyone who was at that severance grand central station activation is stronger than me bc if i had been there I would've been banging on the glass and screaming "helly r, you are so important to me"

[lady0ri]

My theory on Helena/Helly R. is that Helena is going "undercover" as Helly because she wants to taste "freedom" by masquerading as Helly.

[kaitcake1289]

lumon more like [LOUD CENSOR BAR]

[hiphiphelly]

the four tempers + helly's clothes

[twatface79]

helena is so DEVIOUS!!!!! I LOVE HER

[mostcursedofpastas]

Yes!! Both versions of her are hardcore, no holds-barred people. But Helena is a rich person with a family legacy. She's chosen to have the Severance procedure done to prop up that legacy and advance her family's goals. There is so much riding on this severance thing working out for her, which is seriously the only thing that explains her going back to work after Helly tried to kill her.

Helly....doesn't have any of those pressures. She is not invested in severance remaining legal and being used by/on everyone. All she knows is the horror of being at work, perpetually!! And she will do anything she can to get out.

something that strikes me about helly r as a character is like a certain nature vs. nurture theme...the absolute horror of her character, to me, is realizing that had you been born under a different set of circumstances surrounded by different ideologies and given different opportunities, you might have chosen to do harm and cruelty and evil??? (which she DID) but then there's the flip side of that. that if helly r. at the office with no memories and no history is at her most pure 'nature', than you are also able to say that that evil is not inherent, but was definitely nurtured. and anyway severance is all about how these identity lines and markers get blurred

[thefinchisalie]

me and the other 5 severance fans on this app cheered

[strawberrycaterpillars]

[dawn-the-rithmatist]

Crying over Helly’s fake version of the overtime events. Her coworkers can think her outie is a bitch but she won’t let them know she’s an Eagen. Something about refusing to be part of the thing that keeps them trapped because she can’t lose this community, the only one that she has. She wants to be someone boring, she wants to save the gorillas, she wants to have a garden and someone to tell when things are bad who will talk to a person who can fix things. She doesn’t want to be Helena Eagen, and she won’t give up Helly R’s friendships to the person who put her on the severed floor.

“We’re not the same. Us and the outies, we’re not, and I don’t think we owe them shit.”

[onyourstageleft]

severance s2 ep3 thoughts: (spoilers under the cut since the ep just dropped yesterday)

- no Mrs. Selvig don't turn around please become a traitor go wherever the fuck you were going that was 280something miles away. please answer my burning questions about the hospital arm band

- Lumon better not buy Dylan out of the plotting, he was growing on me but if they lure him back in with the family visitation center thing I will be deeply saddened

- we still don't trust Helly

- before Milkshake opened the box me and my partner knew where it was going, I said out loud "please don't be blackface" and yet

- also I find Natalie or whatever her name is, the board liaison, so creepy. I think it's her eyes

- "tiny hall for goats" - my partner

- is that Frolic tattoo man!?! frolic, as in frolic with the goats?! (update maybe it's not but I think it was a valid assumption in the less than two seconds we saw him initially)

- Felicia giving Irving a mom hug is so wholesome

- the angry farmers materialize, this is actually starting to give horror movie vibes now

- #wifereveal #clearbagpolicy

- his wife is so cute though I love her

- apparently this actress was also a major character on walking dead, one of my partner's special interest shows

- "we live on a cattle ranch?" innie Dylan doesn't understand the charm of vintage dress up photography!

- the drawings of Burt are so cute!! and we get new info! the exports hall!

- glad they talked the goat people down but why are we showing off our bellies

- OH SHIT it's the pouches that they are believed to keep their larvae in for that whole MDR propaganda thing Burt mentioned before

- is Dylan's wife an overnight security guard somewhere or something?

- Natalie what the fuck are you doing there, Ricken does not need you. Ricken please do not buy into anything they're trying to sell you

- I love Devon she hates Lumon so fucking much and she loves her brother a lot, enough to not tell her husband whatever the fuck it is that they're doing with apparently trying to burn an image into his eyes

- my partner said it on the last EP and I forgot to write it but I agree, Mark is clearly the important one, the rest of them were expendable, and it has to do with his dead wife and whatever Cold Harbor is

- asking them to fire Milkshake after all he did, running around and serving cunt all week on his motorcycle? I mean I guess

- run bitch run! please become a traitor to Lumon, you could tell that whatever the fuck that was was gonna be a trap

- "who told you that" no really ma'am who did tell you that how did you know that his wife is alive at Lumon

- oh shit yeah she did used to work there and was involved in the severance brain lab, definitely forgot about that major plot point (as did Mark apparently)

- I did not expect her to set up shop in his fuckin basement for this but I guess. also vaguely surprised he agreed to it so readily now, but grief do be strong

- well shit is definitely gonna start popping off soon!

- next ep I need outie Mark to be vaguely aware of Helena Eagen and recognize Helly but not be able to place it and then figure it out and blow shit up

[gotolunarvalleys]

helena eagen watching her innie and mark’s innie falling for each other and kissing and visibly being affected by it and tearing up is so !!!! like this is gonna get so good we are going to get so mixed up here this won’t even be a love triangle this a love hexagon

[shatterstars-world]

So I am writing my Arcane fanfic where the severance procedure takes place in Piltover/Zaun and characters such as Vi, Caitlyn, Jayce and Viktor are severed. After reading @beetleandfox 's post on core characteristics and beliefs in the characters from Severance (e.g. Irving's "desire for meaning and art and spirituality" and Helena's "headstrong and entitled nature"), which talks about how morals and devotion to a cause are socialised in us rather than innate parts of our character, I've been thinking about the core beliefs and characteristics of the Arcane characters. I want to pull together some of the popular analyses of them, and think about how that may translate for their "innies". To me, one of the most interesting ways to build characters is asking: what is this character's core belief? And why is it wrong?

To me, Vi is one of the easiest characters to imagine in a Severance AU, mainly because in Arcane Vi literally spends seven years of her life in prison. She goes in a terrified teenager who has lost everyone she loved, and comes out hardened by tragedy and prison brutality – but she remains a kind, intelligent, caring and trusting person. Severance creates both a physical and mental prison for innies, who are designed purely for labour but are human and therefore need connection. And I think both Vi's outie and innie would be desperate for it.

One of her core beliefs is that she's here to protect and help others. It's why she risks her life again and again for the people she loves, why she can't let Powder go in season 1, why she loses her sense of identity after she's lost both Powder/Jinx and Caitlyn in season 2 act 2, and why staying to help in the commune has such an appeal to her. Similarly, I think her innie would be committed to helping others. I don't think she would find meaning in a god figure that Lumon creates, but instead find meaning in friendships with her coworkers.

Do I think Vi's innie would try to break out when she is first born? Absolutely. But I think that rebellion would be beaten out of her over seven years, much like it is for Mark S. through the torture of the break room. Think about Vi when we first meet her. As @generisydtoo says in their analysis of the prison warden and institutionalised brutality within the prison, Vi is expecting to be beat up when Caitlyn comes to question her and just wants to get it over with. It is only because of Caitlyn's power that she is able to leave, otherwise she may have lived the rest of her life in prison. Vi's innie would be taught that there is no means of escape, and if she were to learn that her outie had severed because she had to work tirelessly from a young age and this corporation gave her the best opportunity to look after her family, I think her innie would accept that. She too only really finds meaning in others. The flaw in this logic is that she will harm herself and others if all she can think about is trying to protect them. Protection is not the same thing as life, peace, justice and satisfaction. Ideas about rebellion would only occur to innie Vi if her friends were in serious danger (which they will be, but I don't want to give away too many spoilers...).

Now if there's any Arcane character who is easy to transpose onto a Severance character, it's Caitlyn. Like Helena Eagen, she is born into power and wealth, is sheltered by her family, and is headstrong in her beliefs. However, Caitlyn is given opportunities to carve her own identity in a way Helena can't, e.g. being allowed to become an incredible marksman, joining the enforcers, not being punished for using her connections to release Vi and solve a mystery in the Undercity but instead being given an opportunity to speak to the Council. That being said, I think Caitlyn's innie would be similar to Helly R.: furious with her outie for imprisoning her in this way, raging against the corporation, desperate for freedom as Helena/Cailtyn is in the outside world.

Caitlyn is such an interesting character in Arcane because she goes from a naive girl guided by her moral compass and black and white thinking, to a jaded woman who becomes so consumed by grief that she believes that the ends (killing Jinx) will justify her means (declaring martial law, using the Grey to hunt the chem barons regardless of the damage it could cause to innocent civilians of the Undercity). It is only when she is forced to face the fact that her actions are immoral, regardless of the end result, that she accepts the total error of her ways.

I think at the core of Caitlyn's character is the belief that her moral compass will guide her to doing the right thing. This belief is obviously flawed and frequently wrong, which is what makes her so compelling to me. In a Severance AU, this may mean that her outie sees no problem with the subjugation of innies, and it means that her innie will see no problem in harming her outie if she cannot have freedom.

I have so many more ideas for this fanfic and cannot wait to flesh out the world-building. I am currently half way through chapter 1 of 7, but with Severance season 2 coming out, the possibilities of this fic feel endless to me. Thank goodness for art.