Bertha Leinwëber

Art by the wonderful Crystal-Sushi

### Monster Quirk

"Tough love" is something in my books, it's really the basis of what I do for others. But admitingly, do call me a control shriek, because it's more often than never that I take desperate measures to keep things in order. Sometimes people respond better to the hard way, you know?

### Favorite Activity

Creating some freakishly gorgeous accessories for myself and scaling heights with my two left feet. Ok, I don't actually have two left feet but you get the idea.

### Favorite Color

White like the snow that tickles my feet and the fleece made from the fluffiest wool. Plus, it's the sum of all colors.

### Favorite Food

Mother's homemade fish porriage. That's kinda what I've been eating all my life.

### BFFs

Barb Metz and Suzy Wrath, my dearest ghoulfriends. We love making things together.

## Biography

### Appearance

Bertha in her normal, fair form is white all around. She has short straight platinum blonde hair, juvenile sized horns on the top of her head, grey eyes with icy blue pupils and tiny fangs. In her ugly form, Bertha becomes very dark, now with long curly black hair, grey skin, full sized horns, blood red eyes and large tusks coming out from her lower jaw. In both forms, she has a left swan foot and a port wine stain roughly in the shape of a star.

### Personality

Don’t let her fluffy exterior and scraggly sweaters fool you, she’s stone cold and strictly organized when it comes to work. Bertha expects perfection not just from herself but also those working with her. Owing to her monster heritage, she can be rather unforgiving towards the slightest of mistakes. While she doesn’t go to the same extremes as her ancestors, Bertha is prone to holding long grudges and would watch hawkishly for any flaws. She would be especially annoyed by repetitive ones.

Bertha treasures every moment and wants to make the most out of them. She’s a busy bee who seems to enjoy being occupied. While she does try to balance her workload with leisure, Bertha has a tendency to look for more activities. Sometimes she volunteers for various projects and organizations, with a view to helping others with less fortunate circumstances. Other times, she’s learning new skills with online courses. She believes there’s always time to do whatever one wants, what’s important is how one manages it. She has to-do-list apps installed in her iCoffin to ensure everything moves like clockwork. With their assistance and a bit of planning with the school map, she’s always on time for every class with enough time to spare for lunch and her duties as a safety monitor at the end of the school day.

At night, however, she lets her hair down as she steps into the shoes of another monster. It’s normal for her species to dress up for their annual winter gathering but Bertha also transforms in a different way.
(Tbc)

### Abilities and Interests

Bertha is a crafter. Because weaving is a family tradition.she was taught how to weave from a young age. She also picked up more crafting skills from her courses, including knitting, crochet, felting and making stuffed toys. She loves using these skills to make spooktacular fashions for herself and friends and Bertha is always on the lookout for fun bits and bobs she can incorporate into her work such as strange beads, detailed ribbons and other resources. Evidence of her talent shines through the “ugly” sweaters she often wears, keychains and friendship bracelets. Among her skills, Bertha finds felting most carthargic as it is a harmless way for her to cool down by unleasing a stabbing wrath upon a ball of fluff. After all, the more she stabs, the faster she can get her craft finished.

She joined Rochelle’s Student Safety Team with the intention of lending a helping hand to fellow monsters. She has volunteered for the traffic patrol department and current spends the end of her school day directing lines of cars from the school parking lot and assisting pedestrians, especially hordes of zombies.

### History

Bertha is from a Perchten community in Los Fangeles. They live alongside Krampi.

## Monster - Perchten

Main article:Perchta

Perchta can refer to the goddess, as well as the beasts that are said the souls of unbaptised children who have similar powers to her that follow her around and do her bidding. In some versions, the Perchten are instead demon escorts to the goddess they’re named after, which is the version used for this character.

### Parallels

* Bertha takes up felting and also makes stuffed toys. Frau Perchta is known for slitting open the bellies of naughty children and stuffing them with straws and pebbles.
* Bertha is a member of the Student Safety Team and goes around school to ward off any potential dangers. Ugly Perchten walk around knocking on people’s doors to ward off evil spirits.
* Bertha lives by the motto "Work hard, play hard" and her parents would ground her if she doesn't take a break. Perchta is just as likely to punish people for working on her feast day as she would punish those who've been naughty.
* Perchten have two forms. So does Bertha, biological and aesthetically speaking.
* Suzie was adopted. Perchta often takes in the lost souls of children.

## Relationships

### Parents

They have a peculiar rule that makes weekends off mandatory and should they catch Bertha working during these hours, she’d be grounded. The best kind of grounded, actually, since it would mean they won’t let her do anything other than sitting in bed with comfy pillows and provided with hot porridge, lots of OJ and all the TV she would want. They’ve practically made chillaxing a must, since they don’t want their little monster to overwork herself. They’re actually pretty easy and do make allowances for homework and other projects, so long as Bertha asks them first. The same applies for the curfew.

### Friends

#### Rochelle Goyle

Bertha looks up to big boss Rochelle and dutifully follows every order to help other monsters with tasks big and small.

#### Barbaros Metz

(Note:Barb is non-binary, but will be refered by biological sex for simplicity’s sake. Barb doesn’t care what pronouns are used, so long as he isn’t called “it”)

* She likes giving him makeovers. He especially loves getting his hair dyed in different colors using food coloring.
* He gives her fibers for her crafts every time he gets a haircut. A vegetable lamb like him yields golden fleece.

#### Suzy Wrath (adoptive sister)

The Perchten love a crowd. Many of Bertha’s relatives have fostered and adopted kids before, so it wasn’t a surprise that her parents decided to take up one of their own.

* She used to give Bertha piggyback rides when they were little.
* Makes flower crowns for her sister while Bertha does her makeup.

Bertha (as Pom Pom), along with Suzy and Barb, co-own a Facebook account featuring their makeup transformations and vlogs. They embrace the school motto of “Be yourself, be unique, be a Monstar!”.

## Outfits

### Bertha

Same as her basic, but with a sleeveless orange safety jacket with neon green stripes. She carries a red and white baton and a “stop” sign on a stick. She also carries a megaphone to shout out instructions to pedestrians or tell off naughty students. She wears a bronze deputy badge on her jacket.

### Pom Pom

Pom Pom is Bertha’s drag persona. She’s a bubbly and bright demon with a perfectly imperfect earthy DIY aesthetic that glows. Literally, she wired a bunch of lights under all that fabric.

Self-explanatory. An outfit made of recycled materials.

## Trivia

* It’s hard to tell which number she is overall, considering hundreds of Sola’s MHOCs were scrapped before her. But she is the first in Sola’s current generation.
* Sola created her with the intention of getting back into the fandom. She’s currently Sola’s main focus in her current cast of characters.
* Past incarnations of Bertha were children of other Christmas disciplinary figures, such as Krampus and Dirty Pete. Before then, she was a demon under the name of Iracebeth Gavarre, though she shares little to nothing in common with this first version, other than a strict personality and a color scheme featuring red and yellow.
* Pom Pom’s outfits are inspired by several queens, which are Frankie Doom, Vander von Odd, Meatball and Untitled Queen. The first three were contestants in the first season of Dragula, which her creator had been watching prior the creation of Bertha’s persona.
* The fact that Bertha is from Los Fangeles is a nod to Krampus Run LA. Her appearance is based on the masks and costumes worn by the paraders in this event.