#*character analysis

helena is not socially inept. far from it. she's had the fanciest upbringing with etiquette classes. she knows and has been taught how to kiss up or punch down across the hierarchy and what's expected or not. from my perspective, she's largely very neurotypical and understands nuance, social linguistics, the dumb rules, the doublespeak, the implications, etc. she understands reality. she just won't dress her opinion down. she just won't play the fool. she'll be kicked out of the kingdom happily instead. hel is hyper honest to a flaw. she will either stay silent or go 100. she can't beat around the bush. she cannot Not do intense. she's not crass, she's not angry for the sake of being angry, she's not cruel. she just has to be direct and say it as it is. she's straightforward. she has clarity. she has the willingness to take responsibility for her actions, words, thoughts, and beliefs. she is not fragile. she will own up and recorrect her beliefs and hear you out. she doesn't think she's right always; she can understand where you're coming from, she just also opines you're an idiot from coming from there. helena has to act swift. always has to make every shot she shoots count and hit the target. she cannot afford to waste precious time, delay what's right, or miss her mark. every. thing. has. to. count. she doesn't care if she's called a bitch. she'd rather be a lonely unlikeable isolated unvited-from-everything endless negative karma having bitch with her opinions pointing out the flaws than a nice likeable friendly person who bites her tongue and suffocates on the blood from how hard and how long she bites it down for. she will not be a dead woman today. or tonight. or tomorrow. or for as long as she can help it.

helena still has her insecurities and discomforts, of course; she's never wanted to support the idea that "feminine" is less or whatever, but she's been deeply uncomfortable with being or presenting herself as feminine for so long because of how much she's had to untangle society's ill treatment and punishment of women and what's considered inferiority from her own actual comfort. she rationally has always believed that what you wear reflects shit about you and skirts and heels don't mean anything immediately, but it's taken her a long time to truly be comfortable with that herself, as well as the neutral fact that she likes practicality usually over the years, she's gotten better about it. she only used to proclaim her disdain for dresses and heels when she was younger; she wears both now whenever she feels like it and doesn't feel strange about it. she's unapologetic about her enjoying pop music and stan culture, getting her iced coffee, and all of that stuff because why should any of it make her less tough? her only hard nos, however, include skirts that are too long or too short, headbands and similar hair accessories, and anything that reminds her too much of what she was wearing right before certain traumatic incidents transpired. her discomfort is honestly really just her trauma and nothing to do with her opinions on women's clothing, but like i said, she's doing the work of untangling society's notions and punishment of what's weak from what's actually bad, to let herself feel bad about being treated like shit without absorbing that sexism herself

idk if it's obvious but helena deals with a blunted affect or sometimes a flat affect most of the time <3 #trauma but it's like. she cares and feels a lot internally but has trained herself to not show it until she absolutely must. anger obviously doesn't count as an emotion it's a necessity. she doesn't want to be too much and impose her feelings on others, but at the same time, she doesn't care about being rude and asserting herself when needed. she also genuinely cannot feel/express unbridled joy, complete tranquility, or properly grin or laugh, at least not without immediately stopping it. she isn't above emotions but like you know. the grief and the gaping void that's always lingering. helena is purple because of the ephemeral passion of red and the everpresent endless melancholy of blue which she's a perfect blend of.

prev post continuation: she's so clean about her boundaries. she never makes her students feel like a burden. but she will shame authorities for trying to waste her time or thinking she'll be a sucker for them LMAO all while still being a model employee! cause technically she is doing her job and none of this is a fireable offence :) and she's not rude either, she can sound very polite and friendly while reminding you of her business hours. she will not feel obligated to work extra hours for the salary she know she is entitled to and how she doesn't fall for superhero propaganda too it's even funnier because she doesn't need teams, she's a solo vigilante. teams would usually want/need her or just another pair of hands. so unlike a principal, she'll be more likely to tell a hero or even the team leader to fuck off without hesitation if they try to exploit her free labour for bureaucratic nonsense; cause at school, she's a salaried employee. but superhero teams aren't technically a real job most times, everybody's authority is made up, and the point is to save people, not to play dick measuring contests. missions don't mean shit either. helena considers vigilantes as civilian servants of the people, not saviours or rulers. her loyalty is to civilians, not these caped randos who can't scare her in a way that matters. she's only on the team because you wanted her. otherwise she'd be doing it on her own and winning. at least her principal pays her a salary GDGVBS

i know helena is american and all, but i do love to imagine her bringing european norms about anyway like namely, she refuses to answer emails outside of work, whether it's her teaching job or she's a part of a superhero team. she will not answer emails from the higher ups during the weekend or when she's on vacation or from 9 pm to 6 am, she will not be roped into bureaucratic nonsense beyond her work hours. she will clock in and clock out on the times she's officially scheduled at. that being said, she still does goes above and beyond — but for her students and civilians. she is not a sucker for the school admins or superhero team leaders to boss around, but she will suit up any time when something bad happens and people need to be saved, she will answer every email from her students at 1 am and she will help her students with anything they want help or support with, she will teach multiple subjects beyond her paygrade to make sure her students are doing well. but if her principal or the justice league or whatever asks for a record document at 9:01 pm? that email is going straight to trash. 🩵