Survival Of The Fittest

Name: Helena Colt
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Video games, anime, photography, cooking

Appearance: Helena has messy red hair that falls just past her shoulders, with a fringe that covers up her forehead while stopping just short of her dark green eyes. Helena’s face is round with a small nose and lips along with a slight bit of fat under her chin. Helena’s skin is pale with heavy freckles covering her face and chest. She stands at 5’4” and weighs 155 lbs. She has long, skinny arms but a small amount of fat in her stomach and thighs.

Helena usually wears black or grey T-shirts with various video game or anime designs on them, along with baggy shorts and a pair of scuffed-up brown boots she’s had for around five years. Helena also owns various hoodies also adorned with anime and video game inspired designs on them but rarely wears them due to the heat.

Biography: Helena was born in Carson City, Nevada on the 16th of November, 2006 to Samantha and Francis Colt. The two had first met ten years prior when they were sat next to each other on a flight to Carson City. After talking to each other the entire flight the two agreed to meet up again and would end up dating within two months. Francis worked as a doctor in the city while Samantha worked as a line cook and later head chef, leading both to desire more time with each other than they could have. Then in 2002 Samantha was laid off from her job, just two months before her and Francis got married. After a long discussion the couple agreed that Samantha would not look for a new job as she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom when they had kids. After having Helena the couple decided against having any more children due to Samantha not wanting to go through pregnancy again.

The family would move to Las Vegas just a year after Helena was born due to Francis getting a job opportunity as a surgeon at the Valley Hospital Medical Center. Due to the long hours and stressful nature of the job Helena was mostly raised by her mother Samantha. Helena developed a much closer bond to her mother because of this.

In 2013 Helena would see a commercial for the then up-coming PlayStation 4 on television. Up to that point she had only vaguely heard about games from people at her school but after seeing the commercial Helena became obsessed. Samantha was constantly bombarded with questions about games consoles and requests to buy the PlayStation 4. So many that Samantha and Francis eventually decided to get Helena the console as soon as they could, saving up until the day of its release. Francis would use one of his days off to wait in line the day it came out in order to make sure they got one for Helena.

Helena was gifted the PlayStation 4 the next day for her seventh birthday. From that point on she became hooked on video games. Over the next few years she would spend most of her time locked up in her room playing games like Marvel’s Spider-man, God of War and Uncharted 4. Helena’s favourite kind of games were single-player narrative-focused games, but she still tried and enjoyed most types of games. Helena also preferred to take games at her own pace, enjoying her time with each one as much as L she could. Soon Helena would quickly amass a large collection of games and games consoles, including older ones like the Original PlayStation and GameCube. Helena’s favourite console still remains her PlayStation 4.

Helena would begin watching more YouTube videos from those point on as she discovered video game lets players. Channels like Markiplier, Jacksepticeye and PewDiePie became Helena’s favourites and she still owns multiple items of merch from each channel. Outside of the comments section of these channels Helena has made few attempts to mix with the broader gaming community. While Helena enjoyed watching other people play games online she herself found it difficult to share her own experiences and thoughts, preferring to keep to herself when possible. Helena did attend PAX East 2016 after her parents took her there for a vacation but found the experience overwhelming.

Video games would also directly lead into Helena’s love of anime. Helena would find various anime games on the PlayStation Store over the years like Dragonball Xenoverse, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm. Helena would watch them either on the family Netflix account or pirated on YouTube. Her favourite one was Naruto, which Helena enjoyed both for its more tactical fight scenes and its characters, many of which Helena found some form of connection with. Helena still has multiple pieces of merch from the show dotted around her room.

Much as with video games Helena did not engage much with the wider anime community outside of YouTube. Helena enjoyed watching channels like Mother’s Basement and Gigguk but was too scared to go further than that, afraid of getting judged for her opinions or tastes.

Helena’s grades in school around this time were fine - not great, but not bad, either. However her parents were often told by teachers they were concerned about her not making many friends or showing much interest in extracurricular activities. Helena was bullied at school a lot for her intense freckles and naturally quiet demeanour which prevented her from being able to connect with people easily. As such she decided to just stick to herself and didn’t have much of a want or desire to interact with other kids. Helena rarely left her room for anything besides school and dinner.

Because of this Samantha started forcing Helena to come out with her for walks to try and get her to open up more and get used to the outside world. She bought Helena a cheap camera to take pictures of anything interesting she saw. Samantha also made a game out of it, assigning Helena points based on the most interesting thing she would photograph that day. This worked very well and Helena quickly found herself enamoured with photography. Helena would often come back from walks and immediately head to her computer to look up various pictures and techniques to take better ones. By the time Helena was twelve these walks and the various pictures she would take during them had become a highlight of her week.

At Samantha’s urging Helena would also set up an Instagram account to share her photos. This account never got much traction but Helena did enjoy having a way to share something she liked without as much fear of judgment. Samantha would also like every photo Helena uploaded there on her own account.

A few days after Helena’s thirteenth birthday her mother was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer. Samantha would start treatment but with the covid-19 pandemic starting during her treatment it made it near impossible to even visit hospitals or doctors. Samantha Colt would pass away on the 3rd of January, 2021. Neither Helena nor Francis were allowed to be by her bedside due to covid restrictions, something that still haunts Helena to this day.

The experience of watching her mother slowly die while also dealing with the pandemic undid most of the progress Helena had made in the last few years. Even after the pandemic was over Helena refused to go outside for any reason. Her camera was barely used anymore, only being picked up when Helena saw something interesting outside of her window. The Instagram account Helena had made with her mother was completely abandoned as Helena found it too painful to use. Her father also found himself swamped with work due to the pandemic and so was hardly ever home anymore, leaving Helena to take care of herself. Helena’s grades would slip dramatically during this time and she started skipping school as she was only showing up when she found the energy to get out of bed. The school offered her grief counselling but Helena would only attend one session due to her lack of desire to talk about her mother.

After the school made their concerns about Helena clear to her father he took Helena to get diagnosed. Helena was diagnosed with Clinical Depression and PTSD. Helena was prescribed various different doses of antidepressants before they settled on 20mg of Fluoxetine a day. Helena’s father would also start taking her to see a therapist every week, forcing her to go by driving her to and from the therapist’s office. While Helena would still miss a few weeks whenever Francis was working too long to take her there she still managed to make some small recoveries along with help from the antidepressants. Helena would start attending school more regularly and saw an improvement in her grades. But Helena still felt aimless and depressed most days, the treatments making her functional rather than cured.

The only positive Helena found during this time, besides her regular comforts of video games and anime, was cooking. Helena had to start making meals for herself due to her father’s absence and quickly found herself enjoying the feeling of having something new to learn. Helena also enjoyed being able to create and make things herself. Helena would spend some of her free time learning various recipes or experimenting with ingredients. Whenever her dad was home Helena would often be the one to cook dinner for the family.

At Red Rock Helena still lacks any desire to make friends or participate in things. Her reputation is one of a recluse whose only interaction with other students is either people pitying her or bullying her. Anyone who does attempt to talk to Helena finds her to be abrasive and cold, Helena having very little desire to talk with most people. Her grades are still average mostly average, with the only subject she shows major struggles with being physical education. Many of Helena’s teachers say she shows little interest in class or extracurricular activities as well.

Helena has no plans on what to do when or if she graduates, consigning herself to sit in her room until the day she dies. Francis has tried many times to get her interested in further education, suggesting game development or photography or helping her with medical studies but Helena has shown little interest in any of these. In general the two have a much worse relationship currently. Aside from when Francis is driving Helena to therapy or having dinner with her the two don’t talk much. Francis has tried many times to fix this by trying to get into video games or anime and offering to take Helena out on walks to take pictures like Samantha used to. Helena has rejected most of these attempts though. While Helena does not hate her father she finds it hard to connect with him in the same way she was able to connect with her mother. Francis still tries whenever he can though, wanting to have a stronger relationship with his daughter now that she is his only family. Because of this Francis has tried to avoid punishing her even when Helena has misbehaved or refuses to come out of her room, fearing that he may future damage an already unsteady relationship.


Advantages: Helena has above-average hand-eye coordination due to her many years of playing video games as well as decent problem solving abilities. Helena’s photography background has also given her a keener eye for details and the ability to spot hidden points of interest better than most other people.
Disadvantages: Due to her sedentary lifestyle Helena has below average physical ability. She can’t run very fast, runs out of breath easily and has no traits or skills that would help her in a physical contest. Helena also lacks many social skills, preferring to stick to herself and not engage with others, making her unlikely to form any bonds or alliances. This along with Helena’s severe depression brought on by the death of her mother means she’s at a higher risk of suicidal thoughts and tendencies.

Greetings! My name is Gundham, and I'll be reviewing Helena today.

You've done a fantastic job so far, but Helena is Not Approved Yet pending a few minor edits. This might look like a lot, but please don't be discouraged! This profile is very well-written; you've put care and research into this, and it shows! That vast majority of what I'm highlighting here is little stuff, minor grammar tweaks and typo corrections. These things will be quick and very easy to fix, and I'll either show you how to do it or give you examples of how you could tweak it yourself.

That said, there are two changes I'd recommend for whole profile here. First, I'd like you to check for run-on sentences. There are some sentences that are very wordy, and that can make them difficult to read. What I always recommend for this is to a few minutes to read through the whole profile, out loud. If you find yourself pausing mid-sentence, you can probably add a comma somewhere. If you're running out of breath before the end of the sentence, you should probably break it up into smaller sentences. You can also try plugging it into a text-to-speech app and listen for those longer sentences, but I'd definitely recommend reading it yourself if possible.

Second change is a minor one. Whenever you're starting a new paragraph, you'll want to use Helena's name instead of "her" or "she" in the first sentence. That helps readability quite a bit, and helps keep the flow going properly.

School: Southwest Red Rock High School

"High school" is two words.

She stands at 5'4" and weighs 155 lbs.

So, a few things going on here. Heights should either be expressed as 5'4" or "Five feet, four inches," but "5' 4 inches" doesn't really work.

There's a typo where "weights" should be "weighs," and you need a space between the number and the "lbs" in her weight.

Helena usually wears black or grey T-shirts with various video game or anime designs on them, along with baggy shorts and a pair of scuffed-up brown boots she’s had for around five years.

This sentence is fairly long, and it's one of those one.

Additionally, when you're using a two-word phrase as an adjective, you'll almost always want to put a hyphen between the words to tell the reader that it's descriptive. So in this case, "scuffed up" should be "scuffed-up". Also, the T in "T-shirts" is usually capitalized.

Helena was born in Carson City, Nevada on the 16th of November, 2006 to Samantha and Francis Colt.

When writing out dates, you usually want a comma between the month/day and the year.

I'd also like a brief description of Samantha and Francis' relationship. How did they meet, how long had they been married/together before they had Helena? Did Samantha have a career that she left to raise Helena?

On Helena’s seventh birtday she was gifted her first game console, a PlayStation 4.

The PlayStation 4 was released on November 15th, 2013, which is the day before Helena's seventh birthday. Nice job doing your homework on that!

I do have a question, though. For Helena to get this present immediately after launch day, her parents would have had to expend considerable effort and/or money (it retailed for $399 at launch), and likely would have had to spend hours waiting in line or hunting it down at a store. Had Helena played video games before this? Was the PS4 something that she specifically wanted or asked for? It doesn't seem like the kind of gift that even a wealthy a parent would casually get for a child without being certain that the child will get good use out of it.

Additionally, the term for this kind of console is almost always "game console" or "gaming console," and is almost never (if ever) "games console."

She would spend most of her time locked up in her room playing games like Marvel's Spider-man, God of War and Uncharted 4.

When referring to something is a possession of something else, you should always use an apostrophe and an s. (And in this case, that's how it's worded in the title of the game, too.)

Uncharted 4 would have come out in 2016 and God of War and Spider-man wouldn't have come out until 2018, so presumably she's not meant to be playing these until she's ten and twelve, respectively? If so, it might be better to clarify the sentence to something like, "Over the next few years, she would spend a lot of time locked up in her room..." so that it's clear that we're getting a time progression.

Her favourite kind of games were single-player narrative-focused games but she still tried and enjoyed most types of games.

More of those two-word adjectives that need adjectival hyphens.

including older ones like the PlayStation one and GameCube.

This one's a bit nitpicky, but the stylization of the original PlayStation console's name is a bit different depending on what she actually has. If she has an original PlayStation, it would be either called "a first-generation PlayStation" or a "PlayStation One" or "the PS1" or "an original PlayStation." So either the O needs to be capitalized, or it needs to be changed to one of the suggestions above.

Also, I remember renting a brand-new GameCube from Blockbuster video so seeing it as a classic console hurts my soul a little.

Her favourite console still remains her PlayStation 4 though.

Profiles are generally written in a formal, stylized manner, so the "though" is a bit too casual and should be removed.

This would also directly lead into her love of anime as she found various anime games on the PlayStation Store

Can you name some specific ones?

and wanted to watch the animes they came from out of curiosity

When using a plural form of something, you never need an apostrophe.

Her favourite one was Naruto and she still has multiple pieces of merch from the show dotted around her room.

What did she like about Naruto?

Her grades in school around this time were fine. Not great but not bad either.

The second bit here isn't a proper sentence. I would recommend using a dash to add it onto the previous sentence, changing it to something like, "Her grades in school were fine - not great, but not bad, either."

Helena was bullied at school a lot for her intense freckles and naturally quiet demeanour which prevented her from being able to connect with people easily.

To "connect to" something usually implies physically connecting something to something else (e.g., connecting to the internet, connecting a plug to the wall socket), but when referring to people, you would use "connect with."

She even bought Helen’s a cheap camera

Typo here, should probably be "Helena"?

By the time she was twelve these walks and the various pictures she would take during them had become a highlight of her week.

In general, when you're enumerating something, (telling us how many of something there are - in this case, years in Helena's age) you want to use the word form rather than the numeral. This rule generally applies to numbers less than 101. So you can have six apples on the table, or you can have 423 apples on the table, but you shouldn't have 6 apples on the table.

A few days after Helena's 13th birthday though her mother was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer.

This is one of this situations where it's important to make sure that Helena is clearly identifjed as the subject of the sentence. Otherwise, this would read as though Helena's mother was diagnosed with lung cancer after, apparently, her own thirteenth birthday party.

Samantha would start treatment but the condition ultimately worsened and with the covid-19 pandemic starting during her treatment it made it near impossible to even visit hospitals or doctors.

Bit of a run-on sentence here, chopping it down a bit could really improve clarity. You definitely want to change "She" to "Samantha" or "Helena's mother." Otherwise, the context of the previous sentence makes it sound like Helena's going in for treatment here.

Samantha Colt would pass away on the 3rd of January, 2021.

Need the comma before the year here.

Her grades would slip dramatically during this time and she started skipping school a lot too as she was only showing up when she found the energy to get out of bed.

Did the school offer Helena any kind of grief counseling at this time? Was she disciplined for skipping school?

Her reputation is one of a recluse weirdo whose only interaction with other students is either people pitying her or bullying her.

Why would they view her as a weirdo in this context? She's not doing anything particularly odd in this day and age. Playing video games and being a loner aren't really considered extreme behavior nowadays. Does anyone try to talk her? Or does she just pre-emptively refuse talk to them?

She has no plans on what to do when or if she graduates, consigning herself to sit in her room until the day she dies.

Has the school tried to push her on this at all? What does her dad think about this? Is he fine with Helena's lack of ambition, or will he push her to higher education and bigger aspirations?

She’s also able to cook and make various different meals and has a good knowledge of various different ingredients and food products she might be able to find.

Unless Helena's been out foraging for ingredients in the Vegas sands (which seems unlikely), this probably wouldn't be an advantage. There generally isn't food lying around the island, except what's in the survival packs. She might be able to make her rations taste nice, but that's probably about it

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Like I said at the outside, there's a fair enough of stuff here, but almost all of it is very, very minor and easy to fix. You've got a phenomenal start here, and all it's gonna take is a little bit of tweaking, and Helena will be good to go in no time!

Once you've made the edits requested here, post in the thread and let me know, and I'll take another look. In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to message me here via PM, or on Discord! I'm always happy to help.

Edited!

Helena's looking a lot better! There are still a few more tweaks to go, but there's some solid progress here.

Helena has messy red hair that falls just past her shoulders, with a fringe that covers up her forehead while stopping just short of her dark green eyes.

This sentence is still a bit wordy. It's not worth breaking it into two sentences, but modifying it like this would improve the readability quite a bit.

Helena's face is round with a small nose and lips along with a slight bit of fat under her chin. Helena's skin is pale with heavy freckles covering her face and chest.

Just a reminder to make sure that you're using possessive apostrophes. If something belongs to Helena, it is always Helena's, never Helenas. There are several more instances of this throughout the profile. Quickest way to solve this is going to be to do a find-replace in Word or Google Docs, and tell it to change every instance of Helenas to Helena's.

After a long discussion the couple agreed that Samantha would not look for a new job as she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom when they had kids.

"Stay-at-home mom" is almost always hyphenated this way.

It seems like Samantha and Francis were interested in having more than one child. Was there some reason they didn't?

Then on Helena’s seventh birthday she was gifted her first game console, a PlayStation 4.

Great job adding the paragraph explaining the parent's decision to get her the PS4, that was really well done! It does make this sentence a little redundant now, though. We already know it's her first game console, we already know it's a PS4, so those bits can be dropped. I would change it to something like, 'They presented Helena with the Playstation 4 the next day, on her seventh birthday." or something like that.

This would also directly lead into Helena's love of anime.

Helena's name is misspelled here.

Her favourite one was Naruto, which Helena enjoyed both for its more tactical fight scenes and its characters

The context you've added is perfect. Just insert a comma up here, to make it flow a better.

A few days after Helena’s thirteenth birthday her mother was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer.

This one's my bad, I glossed over it on the first pass because of another issue. As a general rule, unless you're referring to a date, when you're describing any number smaller than 101, you want to use the word instead of the numeral. So it would be "thirteenth" instead of "13th."

You don't need to change "stage 3 lung cancer" to "stage three lung cancer," though, because the numeral three appears to be part of the name in most texts.

The only positive Helena found during this time, besides her regular comforts of video games and anime, was cooking.

I think this is what you were trying to say here? The original sentence says "anime cooking," which seems like a different thing. Adding the commas and the "was" to match the example below will make it a lot clearer.

At Red Rock though Helena still lacks any desire to make friends or really participate in things.

Profiles tend to be a bit more formal in tone, so it's a good idea to remove more casual language like "though" or "really." Delete those and change "anything" to "things," and it will tighten that right up for ya!

Helena has no plans on what to do when or if she graduates, consigning herself to sit in her room until the day she dies.

Has she said this to her father? Presumably he's not okay with that, so is he going to try and get her to pay rent? Is he going to find some other way of motivating her to get out of the house? Or is he just sort of going along with this for now and hoping that he can talk her out of it after more time passes?

And that's all I've got for this pass! Lots of really little stuff, but it's almost entirely quick grammar fixes and those missing apostrophes. Get those done, and I'll see you back here soon!

Changed it!

Very good work on the edits so far. I have one or two tiny edits, and one or two things that I'd like to see added.

Then in 2002 Samantha was laid off from her job

"Laid-off" isn't an adjective here, so it wouldn't need a hyphen the same way that "brown-eyed girl" or "amped-up heavy metal music" would be.

Helena would still get detention frequently for being late or not doing homework.

So, one thing that needs to be touched up just a little bit, with regards to how the schools are responding to Helena. If Helena isn't doing her homework, she'd would likely be asked to stay during lunch to complete missing assignments, or would be asked to stay and do it after school while being supervised. If this was a fairly consistent problem, the school would likely be providing her with an educational assistant, an IEP. They would also be pushing Francis to get some kind of formal diagnosis so the school could meet Helena's needs better. This kind of intervention probably should have happened back in elementary school, but is explainable since Samantha was doing a lot of work with her. However, it definitely would have happened in middle school long before they were already progessing to truancy hearings. There either needs to be a formal diagnosis made, or you'll need to provide a reason why Francis wouldn't have one done beyond simply being too busy.

There's also a non-zero chance that if Helena's simply not doing her coursework that she's going to start failing classes, which would eventually get her held back from graduating. Helena probably needs to correct this behavior a bit in high school for it to be plausible that she's even going to be able to come on the school trip. To that end, please add some detail in the final paragraph about how Helena's doing academically at Red Rock. What are her grades like, is she doing well in any classes, doing terribly in any others, etc.

The only positive Helena found during this time, besides her regular comforts of video games and anime

One thing I'd like a bit more detail on, and would like a paragraph for somewhere in the profile: does Helena only play video games for her own sake? Does she have any interest in the broader gaming or anime community? Does she like amassing achievements, is she a completionist, does she do speed-runs? Is she on forums, discussion boards, or Discord servers? Is she a shipper? Does she watch Let's Plays, or lore videos? She likes merch, so does she go to conventions, does she scroll for fanart on DeviantArt, does she go shopping for that kind of thing?

Same goes for her photos - she's putting some time into learning techniques for photography, but is she actually showing the pictures to anyone? Does she post them anywhere? Has she had prints made?

While this has disappointed her father he has decided to keep trying whenever he can while hoping one day Helena will be able to open up again.

Another thing that will need a bit more detail. Has Francis ever tried just... taking away her video games or refusing to buy new ones? Helena doesn't have a job or any presumable means of financially supporting her hobbies, so he's got a fair bit of leverage there. Is there a reason he hasn't used this leverage to get her to go outside, get a job, or do anything with her life? Or, if he did do this at some point, what was the result?

And what's Francis' relationship with Helena like at this point? She cooks meals for him, sure, but do they talk? Is he interested in her life? She's also the only family he's got, so does he try to spend any time with her? Do they watch anime together? Does he try to play any games cooperatively with her? Does he try to encourage her to do things that he's interested in?

As a final note, this doesn't necessarily need to be addressed here, but will almost certainly come up in final profile approval when the game starts, but it's not clear why Helena would even go on the school trip in the first place. Participation in those kinds of things is generally voluntary, and it's a bit odd that someone who never wants to leave their room or talk to anybody would want to go spend multiple days traveling with their classmates. I'd recommend taking some time in pregame to figure out how you're going to get Helena to that point - whether it's her father compelling her to go in some way or her just making some kind of connection with someone that makes her willing to participate, there'll need to be some kind of impetus for actually getting her involved.

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That's all I've got for you on this one. Sorry to ask for more stuff this far into the process, but I think those extra details will be really helpful moving forward. Once those are in, let me know.

Sorry for the long wait but I have now edited Helena.

Thank you for the corrections, and sorry for the wait time, this month has been a madhouse.

This should be the last round of edits, it's all minor stuff and everything else looks to be in order.

Helena enjoyed watching channels like Mother's Basement and Gigguk

There's an apostrophe in the name of this channel.

At Samantha's urging Helena would also set up an Instagram account to share her photos.

The Instagram account Helena had made with her mother was completely abandoned as Helena found it too painful to use.

"Instagram" is always capitalized when referring to the program.

Helena’s father would also start taking her to see a therapist every week, forcing her to go by driving her to and from the therapist's office.

Need an apostrophe here.

Francis has tried many times to fix this by trying to get into video games or anime and offering to take Helena out on walks to take pictures like Samantha used to.

Typo here, change "tryinging" to "trying."


All simple stuff, and I promise that should be the end of it.

No problem! The edits should be made now.

And just like that, you're Approved. Congrats!