helvarcult

[helvarcult]

Characters who choose death but are forced to live, my beloveds.

Characters who have to come to terms with a second chance at life they never asked for, my darlings.

Characters who move forward on the trembling legs of a newborn fawn through the overwhelming, blinding crush of an existence they fully forsook but which was thrust back upon their unwilling beings, my obsessions.

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luthen and cassian burning their life to make a sunrise their children got to see. i’m fine.

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ever since i saw this picture, i cannot stop imagining helnik with kids.

i think about matthias being a father and it wrecks me. the way he’d kneel to tie tiny shoes, the way those big scarred hands would hold his babies like they were spun glass. all that gentleness he was never given, he’d pour it into them without hesitation.

and nina would be the menace. the one sneaking them cake before dinner, whispering “don’t tell your father,” the one who makes every day feel like an adventure. but then she’d be steel when it matters the most like no one would touch her kids and walk away.

matthias would try to be the steady, firm one but the second those little eyes looked up at him, he’d fold completely. they’d balance each other without even trying. and you know those babies would grow up knowing they were the most loved creatures on this earth.

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when you really think about it, the conversation between poseidon and odysseus in epic the musical,

(“after everything you’ve done… how will you sleep at night?”

“next to my wife.”)

feels like the very essence of matthias crawling back to nina in chapter 39 of crooked kingdom. not for absolution. not to be forgiven. but because after everything, he still wanted to come home.

six of crows ships and their greek mythology parallels

kaz and inej are orpheus and eurydice, because maybe the boys looking back doomed both the girls, but it was also ultimately an act of love. they looked back at their weaknesses, the women they were goners for. kaz and orpheus were devastated, kicking themselves for it, kaz for letting inej get captured, orpheus for letting eurydice get trapped in the underworld. all because they loved their girls enough to look back.

nina and matthias are odysseus and penelope. both nina and odysseus separated from their lovers to go to battle, nina to whatever troubles were to cross her next, odysseus to the trojan war. both matthias and penelope waiting for their return. nina vowing to reunite with matthias in their next lives, the same way odysseus vowed to reunite with penelope. nina and odysseus, two soldiers who yearn for the loves of their lives, holding out for the day they will meet again.

and jesper and wylan as achilles and patroclus. both of them a pair of boys who fought alongside each other, who fell for each other in the midst of it. boys who know each other down to the detail, who were battle partners and then friends and then more. boys who are the halves of eachother’s souls.

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i think she knew, deep down, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit that this was the end.

and i’m so mad because the way luthen was so wrong about telling lonni he was sacrificing kinship and love. kleya loved him so dearly and i honestly believe she killed him not because it “had to be done” but because if he lived, he would've been tortured. she did it to save him. she did it out of love.

ANDOR (2022–2025) 2.10: MAKE IT STOP

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kleya and luthen being the centre of the rebellion from the start. they’re each others catalyst, spinning tightly together and gaining energy with each turn. spurring others into action, random moments across the galaxy connected by what luthen and kleya build. the way that kleya’s comms bring luthen to bix to cassian. send vel and cinta off apart and then together. are a voice to the ghormans. get mon from a senate arrest to yavin… and then when everyone’s flown away, when the rebellion has cast luthen aside, it’s kleya’s same old rebellion radio which still reaches cassian. gets the words death star from the isb to the rebel alliance

and kleya is so sure she can’t do this without luthen. all she believes in is her connection to him. until cassian and melshi drag her to yavin and mon wants to know if she’s okay and vel finds her in the forest because she has friends everywhere. she’s the connection between them all. and when kleya wakes up and stands smiling out at the heart of the rebel base realising that even if luthen has burned what they built has lived on… I don’t have lately, I have always. it will always be because of them

[helvarcult]

✨matthias helvar is a tiny little liar✨

and not even about something noble. no. he lied about drinking.

in six of crows, chapter 20:

“I do like cake, but we’re not permitted sweets.”

“Anyone? Or just drüskelle?”

“Drüskelle. It’s considered an indulgence. Like alcohol or—”

“Girls?”

so he paints this whole picture of repression. like he’s some holy frostborn monk untouched by sin. no sugar, no booze, no women. just hymns, wolves, and cold showers. but THEN.

in chapter 41:

“Claas, who had drunk too much with him in Avfalle.”

sir?? you mean you DID drink?? like multiple drinks??? HELVAR????

you didn’t just break the rules. you were out here getting hammered with your little ice cult bros and then turned around and told nina:

“we are trained to deny ourselves 🥺👉👈”

you little shit. you performed purity. you lied about drinking. for THE AESTHETIC. you are a fraud. a frosty fraud.

and nina? i’m imagining the day she finds out. maybe it’s jesper handing him a shot. maybe it’s a rough night and he just drinks without thinking. and nina’s gonna pause. watch him swallow it like second nature. no flinch. no comment. no reaction.

and she’ll squint and she’ll go: “have you… done that before?”

the moral high ground is GONE.

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“I need you in Coruscant,” Luthen said. No greeting. No explanation.

“Why?” Matthias asked.

“Because the war is changing,” Luthen replied.

The screen cut to black. Nina stood behind him. Quiet now. Barefoot still. “You think this is it?” she asked.

“I think he’s going to ask us to burn something.” Matthias sighed softly.

“Will we?”

Matthias looked at her then. Looked at the girl who wasn’t a girl anymore, the witch with hands full of fire and grief. The only person who ever looked at him without flinching. “If you do,” he said. “Then I will.”

or two of Luthen Rael’s monsters; trained to kill, trusted to disappear. Sent to Kettera under false names, forged orders, and a mission meant to burn. But between broken systems, war and a crew who call themselves the Crows, they learn how to hold each other and what it means to stay soft in a galaxy that doesn’t allow it.

there is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us (9k)

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There is a wound beneath the snow, and we have forgotten it’s there. We raise sons in frostbitten silence and call it strength. We cut out softness from our daughters and call it survival. We teach obedience and call it honor. We teach hatred and call it god.

Fjerda is not proud.

Fjerda is sick.

or from beyond the grave, Matthias Helvar leaves behind a manifesto, part confession, part revolution, written not for redemption, but for the burning of the old world.

unto stone we are (matthias’s letter) (3k)

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Three memories before Wylan has to be the one to keeps watch.

A carving shaped like a wolf. A question asked on a deck, with the wind in their teeth. A cabin, too small to hold what was changing between them.

The house is quiet. The room remembers him. The bed is empty. Wylan stays awake. Wylan keeps the promise. It’s not enough.

But it’s what he has left.

or it’s just a spin-off version of Crooked Kingdom, Post-Chapter 40.

my bunny froze out there to death, he was my very best friend (2k)

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FUCK BRUM

not just for what he did but for what he made matthias believe. for turning a grieving boy into a weapon and then calling it love.

he didn’t raise matthias. he reprogrammed him. he found a boy who lost everything and whispered, “good. now you’re mine.”

brum called him his “favorite pupil.”

matthias called him father.

FUCK BRUM

for feeding him obedience and calling it pride, for punishing softness, for crucifying doubt, for burying the real boy so deep he couldn’t hear his own voice anymore.

how many times did matthias think “what would brum do?”

thinking that was morality? how many times did he choose hate just to feel worthy?

and when he finally broke free, when he said no, said it’s poison, said i won’t drink it anymore, brum shot him.

and matthias still begged nina not to kill him.

STILL he begged mercy for the man who raised him to hate mercy.

FUCK BRUM

for surviving the boy he destroyed. for blaming nina, blaming joran, blaming everyone but himself. you don’t get to kill your son and call it patriotism, you piece of shit. YOU DON’T GET TO GRIEVE FOR HIM. YOU DON’T GET TO CRY OVER THE ASHES YOU LIT.

you didn’t love him. you used him. and the worst part, he believed you did.

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i think we’ve all been misreading the storm metaphor.

in soc, matthias says,

“it had started with a storm, and in a way, that storm had never ended. nina had blown into his life with the wind and rain and set his world spinning. he’d been off balance ever since.”

and of course we all loved that line. it’s romantic, it’s chaotic, it gives enemies-to-lovers a real weight. but by the end of ck, it changes the perspective of his character.

in his final chapter, dying, dreaming, chapter 40 goes,

“the storm raged around him, drowning out nina’s voice. and yet his heart was easy. he was on the ice once more, and somewhere he could hear the wolves howling. but this time, he knew they were welcoming him home.”

this is not nina’s storm. this is his.

this child soldier thought nina was the chaos in his life. the wild wind that ruined his balance. but that was never true. he was off balance because he never had a center. not after his family burned. not after brum made a weapon out of him.

“the drüskelle had given him purpose. but the rest of it? the jokes in the mess hall? the endless boasting and mindless chatter? that he had no use for. he had a family. they were buried beneath the black earth. the drüskelle were merely a means to an end.”

he never let himself feel anything outside duty and vengeance. even brum couldn’t reach him emotionally. matthias didn’t care for the other boys. he didn’t want to belong, he wanted to survive.

by the time he meets nina, he still doesn’t know how to be a person but by the end, by the time he dreams of wolves welcoming him home, he does know. the storm he spent his whole life surviving wasn’t her nor grisha/ravka. it was him.

he was the storm. and this time, he was walking into it, not to fight it, but to rest in it. to be home in it. (“I am already home.”) and he returns to the beginning to the icy shore where he once washed up with nina but this time he was alone.

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matthias helvar was not a nazi, he was a boy built like a weapon and left to die trying to be human

i am so unbelievably tired of people calling matthias a nazi or white supremacist (????) like they skimmed six of crows with one eye and a twitter filter and decided to cosplay moral literacy.

you want to understand drüskelle? look at vikings. look at central asian nomads. look at mongol military doctrine. not fucking gestapo. fjerdan language is literally scandinavian rooted, the culture is a cold, norse coded polytheistic pantheon, a divine warrior class, and sacred wolves, tribal theocracy. they literally do not give a single fuck about being superior and think that others are subhuman for being different. all they talk about is grisha are dangerous but not because they’re lesser but because they’re threat.

matthias was not raised on supremacy. he was raised on vengeance. his family got murdered, he was conscripted as a child. not brainwashed like it’s a class he could skip; groomed, militarized, stripped of softness, molded into a holy weapon by a state that demanded obedience and called it righteousness.

you think this is a redemption arc? it’s not. it’s a ghost story.

he doesn't know how to be a human. nina tells him -literally textually, not subtextually- he doesn’t know the difference between a good man and a good soldier. he gives her the same oath he gave fjerda. that’s not romance. that’s structural damage. this boy has no idea how to want something for himself without filtering it through violence, duty, or sacrifice.

he doesn’t even have a personality. not really. not until right before he dies

when he, jesper, and kuwei escape from the dime lions, and for the first time in his entire life, he thinks "i’ll find nina. we’ll change the world."

that’s the first moment he thinks like a person. not a soldier. not a legacy. a person.

and what does he do?

he tries to help a boy.

and he dies.

not because he “paid the price for his past.”

he dies because he was a half-built soul making a full-hearted decision with no idea how to survive it.

he still thinks like a twelve year old boy who accepted losing blood for trassel

“i won’t hurt you even if you hurt me.” // “you don’t want to hurt me. i was like you once.”

he still acts like “doing good” means dying for it. because that’s the only model he’s ever had.

this isn’t justice. it’s unfinished. it’s unfair. it’s textually written to be a scream cut short.

and you reduce that to “nazi boy dies lol”?

be fucking for real

matthias didn’t get a redemption arc, he was learning how to be a human and we were going to read his redemption if he didn't fucking die.

matthias helvar was not evil.

he was barely even alive before he met nina/crows

and he dies the moment he starts to imagine he could be more.

ps. also, no, he didn’t get shot by his "past self." matthias never would’ve shot a man who was unarmed and willing to cooperate. joran was 14 when he killed matthias. matthias was 12 when he risked losing his arm to save trassel. he didn’t even scream when his bone was about to break.

he was the same 12 year old boy who thought he could gain the trust of the aggressive opponent by being kind. that’s why he died. because he never got to grow up fully.

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Wait what happened with Nina's arc in KoS? I don’t mind spoilers

Obviously spoilers for the entire King of Scars duology!

Here's a quick recap: Nina poses as a widowed Fjerdan named Mila and goes to Fjerda to bury Matthias, lugging his corpse with her and wallowing in despair for months. There, she meets Hanne Brum, Jarl Brum's child who is secretly a heartrender and the two become friends. Nina moves in with the Brums in the Ice Court, where she falls for Hanne. Hanne accidently kills the Fjerdan prince, gets disguised to take his place, and Nina becomes the future queen of Fjerda.

Here's what bugs me about this: Hanne is basically Matthias 2.0 without the misogyny (and Nina keeps remarking upon it as well so it's not just me pulling comparisons out of malice or anything). But while Matthias was a memorable character because of his intense, polarizing journey and my own hate-to-love progression, Hanne is just......... boring in comparison. Hanne has good potential with an arc based on breaking through oppressive dichotomy of Fjerdan society in multiple ways, but if I had to choose only one to play the Main Brooding Fjerdan With Jarl Brum As Their Parent Trying to Fix Their Country, Matthias wins. And their romance is so so so weird because it happens in a heartbeat alongside Nina's struggle to find peace with his death. For example, she finds Matthias' killer, gets pissed off and it seems like we will have a character moment about it, but then 5 pages later she totally forgets about it because Hanne needs to be made out with right then. And that ending????????? Like??????????? When Nina promised Matthias to keep his dream of a just Fjerda alive, I didn't imagine a lazy speedrun like "her lover she met 6 months ago hands her the role of the monarch". She will spend the rest of her life as Not-Nina with a Not-Matthias at her side and I am super duper uninterested in considering it canon

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i know nothing about king of scars but i have been spoiled, and i just did not like how nina found new love so quickly. like, am i happy for her? ofc. but i'm just.... matthias tho...

YEAH THAT’S ME!! Ofc I want her to be happy again!!!! Ofc I don’t want her to spend her life mourning a guy she loved for a year!!!!!! But just putting Matthias in the ground and skipping away to have a new romantic story only months after his horrible unjust death??? ESPECIALLY since I despise the decision to end his arc that way???????? Nope nope nope

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dagger & knife earrings by Regal Rose