Hero Sea. Sandersen

""But a mermaid has no tears, so she suffers so much more"? Does the other HC write anything that's not 'I'm fourteen and this is deep'?"

- HC on HC

Hero Seacily Sandersen [she/her] is the daughter of the eldest sister of the little mermaid, from The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. Most people know her under her pseudonym, Foam Chompsea.

Although she’s destined to take the role of the little mermaid's eldest sister, HC has been obsessed with the little mermaid's destiny since childhood. Because of this, she has an adjacent love for humanity and is earnest to gain a human soul, and also holds an undying grudge against the current Little Mermaid. Her tense situation with Meeshell, however, is not public knowledge.

On campus, Hero is known for doing a lot of translation work under her Foam Chompsea pseudonym, as well as her ballet and stand-up skills.

Personality
TBA

“Pride must suffer pain,” - the Little Mermaid’s grandmother.


 * goofy, can't stop won't stop, loves the sound of her own voice. very very earnest in what she wants and she knows exactly what she wants
 * prone to dramatics, has laid down on a lawn facedown crying
 * obsessed with humanity, especially language, and would love a human soul. because of this, she is also obsessed with the idea of virtue
 * very reliant on other people's opinions sometimes and gets rejection anxiety/pain easily

Appearance
HC is a youthful mermaid of Arabic descent. She is usually in the process of growing her hair out long so she can donate and sell it, but often sports an undercut, and wears the rest of her hair up in a bun.

Hero is said to have "beautiful, Elizabeth Taylor eyes", which she often uses to her advantage *flutters eyelids*. Because the refraction index of ocean water differs from air/vacuum, Hero wears contacts to correct her eyesight.

For the purposes of Ever After High, Hero has been gifted human legs. She is able to switch between human and mermaid form via magical leggings, similar to a swan maiden's or selkie's cloak.

Much like those of the little mermaid's, each step taken would feel like a knife. Hero, who is fond of dancing and not fond of perpetual chronic pain, sells her hair in order to buy an analgesic charm. To alleviate this, she also uses a cane and sometimes a wheelchair to get around.

Linguistics
Being Foam Chompsea is more than a hobby, it's her main passion. Every Little Mermaid found some way of falling in love with humanity. Hero realised that she inherited her aunt's same curious spirit, and the field of humanity she loves is linguistics. Learning various sign languages was an hexpectation from childhood, given that little mermaids must give up their voice so communication between the sisters had to happen somehow. With the Mediterranean as her playground, Hero picked up a host of languages from a young age.

She speaks Arabic, English, French, Italian, Greek, Spanish and Turkish. Hero is currently in the process of learning Hebrew and hopes to get the hang of Danish for Andersen's sake.

Ballet
Hero isn't sure what drove her to ballet, out of any other dance. It's a very conventional dance, and her everyday outfit means that she definitely dresses the part. Ballet has become part of her life in the sense that the way she moves in human form on land is very much reminiscent of the steps in ballet. Not surprising, given that she danced as soon as she could walk.

Stand-up Comedy
Mermaids are known for their voice, especially the little mermaid. Hero also has a great voice, one that she really loves the sound of. Instead of investing it into singing, she invested it into Stand-up Comedy.

Hero thinks she's hugely hilarious, and her WooTube channel is composed entirely of her sets.

Other

 * She collects knives.

How It Goes
You know how it goes.

How Hero comes into this
Hero was born the third daughter to the eldest mermaid in TLM. Her mother and her father rule a Sea Kingdom in the Mediterranean, and her paternal grandmother is fantastic at one thing: telling stories. From childhood, Hero has heard the story of the Little Mermaid over and over. She has cried over this story, and more importantly, she yearned for this story. Humanity was fascinating, humanity was contradictory, and ever since childhood, Hero yearned to turn fifteen and see the human world.

When, among her sisters, she was selected to take over as one of the mermaid sisters, she jumped on the opportunity instantly. Turning fifteen, she didn't just get to see the human world, but also live among the fairytales themselves.

In short, within the three years of experiencing humanity, she has fallen in love with it, and wants nothing more than live like so forever.

Opinion on Destiny
The other mermaid sisters live in various seas and oceans, and Hero is familiar with them. The most notable interaction however, is being Hero and Meeshell. Hero is fully aware of Meeshell's fakeness, and does not regard the next Little Mermaid as a suitable candidate for destiny. For starters, Meeshell is always griping about missing the sea and shows no interest in gaining a soul or living destiny properly.

In Hero's eyes, not only does that disparage one of the most beautiful stories told, but it disparages the legacy of Hans Christian Andersen himself. How dare one reject a role in which the author put so much of his own soul into? If Meeshell doesn't find joy in this opportunity, then Grimm damn-it, Hero might as well take it from her, but what are the chances of that?

It is this jealousy, driven by love for the story, that drives Hero against Meeshell. Within Hero, there is conflict. Can she truly be virtuous, if what she wants belongs to someone else? Her alignment is Roybel - she fundamentally believes in the principles of following your Storybook-given destiny... it's just, what a shame that it was so, so mis-assigned.

Parallels
There are a lot of parallels, which I shall gut like a salmon later.


 * Name explained in Trivia.
 * Clearly, if Hero was meant to be a nod to how TLM represent's HC Andersen's pining, then her and Daulis Song being exes is works well as a nod to HC/Jenny Lind.
 * She dances as TLM is an impeccable dancer. She dances ballet as a nod to Ellen Price, who modelled the head and face for the Copenhagen statue.
 * Calabria was chosen as a family home for gay reasons.
 * Gay reasons being that TLM is said to be written for Edvard Collin. Andersen compares his love for Collin to a "Calabrian wench".
 * Much like Kit Andersen, H. Sea was inspired by HC Andersen himself.
 * Hero's conflict mirrors that of the TLM. What she wants (the destiny/the prince) belongs to another (the temple girl/Meeshell).
 * Her birthday is the date of publication of the Little Mermaid.

Quotes
TBA

Trivia

 * Hero is a figure from Greco-Roman mythology. She was a priestess, whose lover Leander would visit her by swimming across a river. One day, he drowns, so she throws herself off a cliff to be with him. You can see some parallels between her and the Little Mermaid.
 * The Sea. stands for Seacily, an Italian island. No significant meaning here. Sandersen is clearly a pun on ‘sand’ and Andersen.
 * Obviously, her name altogether alludes to HC Andersen.
 * Foam Chompsea is a pun on the famous American linguist, Noam Chompsky.
 * Foam is a nod to mermaids dissolving into foam. The Chompsea pun should be obvious.
 * When being referred by her pseudonym, use Foam Chompsea in full. Never merely just Foam or Chompsea.
 * She is from Calabria, Italy.