Cooking Companions: Dread Weight, the sequel to Cooking Companions, has been out for less than a month, but it has already managed to develop a dedicated fambase. One character in particular has developed a fan following and has recently gone viral all over TikTok for the climatic fight scene that happens in the second half of the game.
The character in question is Gisela. Gisela is a very muscular woman (known in internet slang as a “Muscle Mommy”) who is employed by the mysterious Doctor Kurt as his personal bodyguard. Doctor Kurt holes up in a cabin with a few others as he performs experiments in an attempt to defeat the magical Baba Yaga, who was the villain of the first Cooking Companions.
Gisela has no magic of her own, she is a normal human woman who has nonetheless managed to become extremely strong through intense workouts and training. She can even do multiple one arm push-ups as is shown in a cutscene; presumably she takes turns with which arm she is doing the push-ups with, as both her arms are equally beefy.
In Dread Weight, you play for two characters: A police/detective woman and the Baba Yaga witch. When you play for the detective girl, you arrive at Kurt’s house and meet his other accomplices, which includes Gisela. You learn that Gisela’s previous job was at a lumber yard. She would carry tree trunks that were chopped down as part of her job. Kurt found her and immediately hired her to be his personal bodyguard.
Gisela wears a green tank top, glasses, and a camouflage-styled cargo pants with belt and practical boots. Unfortunately, none of the characters in Dread Weight are ever shown in more than one outfit. This is a common flaw in some cartoons, and this translates to weird choices like Gisela sleeping in the tank top and cargo pants rather than pajamas.
If the developer still wanted her to be in a tank top, he could have just had her illustrated in a different tank top made with pajama fabric, perhaps a white one. This would be realistic, as pajama tank tops are a common pajama choice for women in real life, right up there with thermals and bamboo buttoned pajamas. But the green top is perfect as a daytime outfit, so I’m not complaining that much.
When the two of you are alone, Gisela happily tells you that she’s killed multiple men to protect Kurt. Those muscles aren’t just for show, Gisela knows how to fight. In fact, she’s not just stronger than any other women she’s met, she’s stronger than even the buffest men as well. Gisela talks about one man whose head she “crushed like a grape.”
She only tells you this after asking if you want the clean version or the real one of what happened. She also says that she prefers using her hands rather than a knife or a gun, as it’s fun seeing the eyes of her foolish enemies widen in fear and panic. When the detective girl tells her that’s sick, Gisela protests, telling her, “Don’t yuck my yum!”
She also shows you (the detective) a hole in the wall and tells you how she smashed a man through it, killing him. Gisela is not a superhuman, she’s just strong due to hard work and discipline. However, she is scared of spiders, so she never reached into the hole to clean up the mess. Gisela takes a liking to your detective girl character, telling her that even though she is hired to protect Kurt, she will also protect you.
Even muscles has its limits, though, which brings us to the viral climatic fight between Gisela and the other character you play for: The Baba Yaga. All hell breaks loose when the Baba Yaga manages to sneak into the house through the basement and starts causing trouble for Kurt and his group, including the detective.
People start dying, and Gisela makes the decision that no one will go down into the basement alone. Everyone will go as a group. The Baba Yaga has supernatural powers and is stealthy, so has not been caught at this point. Gisela gives the order that no one goes down alone…though it’s an order she’ll eventually break to protect her love: the detective girl.
It is this scene that goes viral. While playing for the Baba Yaga, you accidentally cause a commotion while creeping through the basement. Gisela comes rushing down the stairs to see what’s happening. There is look of surprise as the two of you see one another, but you, as the Baba Yaga, throw your weapon at the muscular woman.
Gisela reacts quickly, snatching the weapon from the air and charging at you. She says it will be fun taking you out. Below are several screenshots chronicling the start of that scene, you can catch the rest at YouTube, Twitch, or TikTok – where all of this has exploded in popularity.
There are multiple reasons why this scene and character have gone viral, but one of the most important reasons is it shows the clash between the natural at its height and the supernatural, muscles verses magic. Gisela later reveals she’s been in THOUSANDS of fights…and has lost zero of them. She’s stronger than any man, even the buff ones, and has killed several. She’s never lost or even gotten injured to any important degree. And this is not because she’s like Superman.
The game makes it clear that everything she does is possible in real life through intense workout and training. Gisela is just very good at this…but she doesn’t have magic, which the Baba Yaga does have. The Baba Yaga is revealed to be so powerful that not even a strike from a lightning bolt can kill her. Therefore, the fight between Gisela and Baba Yaga is one in which not just two women are fighting, but two worldviews operating under different laws of reality.
It should be noted that even though Baba Yaga wins this fight, Gisela survives every ending to the overall – unlike the Babay Yaga, who dies in some of them. Gisela is one of the only characters to survive no matter what. The tank top clad woman may not win this fight, but at least she survives.
This, plus a lot of gamers just love a muscle mommy. Have you gotten the chance to play Dread Weight? Maybe you preferred the cuteness of the Baba Yaga to the tank top clad muscle mommy. Let us know in the comments!
Dread Weight has been available since July 2024 for Windows PC (via Steam).
