#helbt

[eclipsecrowned]

does your muse like the taste of cilantro/coriander, or are they part of the roughly 20% of people that think it tastes like soap? for Hel? // @oakthcrn

It's.... Hel. Statistically speaking, if it's between winning and losing, place your bets on 'Outcome Not Looking So Hot.' She's absolutely the 20% of people who only tastes soap. Depending on the verse, maybe even the one person of her entire race who has this curse.

Gags about the bad hand fate dealt her physically aside, it's been established her tastebuds are a different weird. Whether by design or just the strangeness of her diet eroding her sense of taste over time, she's usually on a different wavelength from those around her. The soap thing is totally in play even without taking into account she's the Norn's wettest most pathetic meow meow kitty.

[eclipsecrowned]

on the other hand though....

'i was going to give her my child (…) she said she'd raise it, teach it magic, take care of it.'

[a party tank must get a firm grasp on hel lest she explode bigger than netherese magic]

[eclipsecrowned]

remembering my horrific lore that hel is not immune to healing magic, actually. it has to be especially potent to take, but you put her in the same space as a deity of rebirth/healing/rejuvenation, her antithesis, and her form starts to shift. skin knits back together. muscles grow taut and strong. veins fix themselves. nerves stop misfiring. she is reformed, whole and lovely.

but hel cannot be reborn, cannot be healed, cannot be rejuvenated at her core. she was born this way. there's no curse to lift or affliction to solve. this is just how she is. and every action has its equal but opposite reaction. as soon as you remove her from that sphere of influence, and she starts to rot, slowly, and then all at once. and she welcomes it.

being put together into a shape that was never hers, making the illusion of her glamour more than skin deep, it hurts.

[eclipsecrowned]

anyway to anyone who fills out the interest checker and selects both 'hel' and 'romance' in any overlapping capacity, i wish you a very 'she will be putting up walls faster than your muse can tear them down' and a merry 'she's a runner she's a track star when it comes to avoiding other people's feelings' and an additional 'she cannot fathom being desired and will be an emotional idiot who interprets their every move towards her as strictly platonic'

[eclipsecrowned]

all that to say she wants the sky! she wants the grass before her! she wants the mountain and the valley and the ocean and the forest! she wants a life full of variety, where common things live and their existence has impact! she wants the wind in her hair and dirt on her hands and the sun on her face! she wants such simple, small things but they're so impossible for her to hold for more than moments! and that's enough for her, even after everything! a few happy moments can carry her through the dark and the ever-winter and the dead! it doesn't have to be for long, it just has to be enough to get by!

[eclipsecrowned]

ah yes, hel, in her realm without a sky, meaning it has no natural light source, meaning there is no capacity for growth or warmth in its borders, meaning the winter is without end, meaning no flora blooms, meaning there is nothing but an endless white winter hell occasionally broken up by the great black forest that separates helheim from the neighboring niflheim, which is less a natural forest and more like if ocean rules were applied to a terrestrial setting, as the deeper you roam the greater and more terrible the monsters.

which is all to say, of course, her mental health is really circling the drain.

[eclipsecrowned]

What feelings does your character most often instill in their fans? Affection? A desire to protect? Open lust? A love/hate dynamic? Why do you think their fans feel this way? For hel // @chaoswrote

I have seen the poll results. I have the more moms = more power jokes. My partners ARE the Hel fandom at this point, and I know what lurks in your hearts. You want to coddle her, to show her the softness she's been deprived, to be very tender with her because life has not.

The fans want to protect her above all else. She's endured Enuff. They do not want to see her endure anymore. As for why you all feel this way, she's a wet cat of a lady for reasons that are not her fault at all. I understand the appeal. But I know what lurks in your hearts.

[eclipsecrowned]

hel with feminine terms of address: home turf, what she has known for all of her life, comforting like a well-worn pair of shoes before a long walk. this is territory she knows well and embraces, particularly in her presentation to the world. hel with neutral terms of address: wonderful, probably best encapsulates how they perceive their gender despite the trappings of traditional femininity, a fun but rarely acknowledged perception of them that they love all the same. hel with masculine terms of address: iconic, perhaps the rarest of all approaches to him, but not an incorrect one, he's fond of all aspects of masculinity, has a history of being gifted with traditionally male roles and titles by romantic interests.