For me it's about The Range. My taste in ships is "the more fucked up the better," but Hellstrop naturally has that AS WELL AS a lot of sof™️ moments. In general I like my media pretty fucking bleak (or with plenty of opportunities for Bleak) but TGP has a tone that fills me with a lot of like.... melancholic hope I guess? And a lot of that extends to the Hellstrop dynamic specifically.

I really like how much they have in common, and how out of their antagonistic relationship a really beautiful and strong friendship emerges out of mutual admiration. Michael does a LOT of really fucked up shit to Eleanor (because.... you know.... eternal torture) but they still manage to get to a place where they trust each other wholly and completely. It's something that's very fucky and weird, but it's also so sweet??? The morality of their relationship is made so fucking weird by just the huge expanse of time that TGP covers, but to me it's like. Just such a hopeful message about what makes a monster and choosing to be a better person. And there's a lot of that canonically with platonic Hellstrop, but I like it even more with a sexual and/or romantic element added.

I also like both of them as aro, and to me (as an aro person) the act of choosing to build love with someone out of adversity and deep friendship is like. That's so fucking tasty to me. Glug glug glug.

Also he's her self appointed "father figure" and I'm taking that in a codependent incest way. <3