Hello Spacehey + Hellbreak lore dump

Hey... Did i reel you in with the scemo art yet ? :D You gotta look at everything else now. (kidding, you don't have to, but that would be cool)

Hello all. There's already an information about me up on my profile, but i'll just introduce myself again real quick. My username is CO2bilanz (pronounced tse-oh-ZWEI-bilanz), shortned to Zwei for short. I am an artist from France, who mainly focuses on Original Characters. 151 870 511 AKA Body Project is my beloved OC story trilogy, which i spend most of my time thinking about and making content for. I came here on Spacehey to test the waters on posting about it in blog form, sharing art and lore tidbits in the process.

The two characters in the art above are from the second part of the trilogy, Hellbreak AKA Axiom of Death, which tends to be my main focus when it comes to making content at the moment. I've drawn a lineup of some of the characters from it :

There's still supposed to be more characters, but be patient !

In the meantime, the four main characters are, from left to right :

Scott Grayson (he/she), someone who wishes to see the good in everybody and herself. When first meeting her, she tends to put on a cynical facade, but if she realizes you are a safe person to be with, she blooms into a sweet and sensitive person. She can get attached quite quickly, but her feelings can also go as fast as they came. He can't exactly compute why everyone can't be morally perfect, and if somebody wrongs him, even on accident, he is prone to a lot of emotions and ghosting... He is an artist and writer at heart, and works as a librarian.

Darwin Leroy (it/he), a calm yet aloof man who prefers spending its days in nature more than anything else. It is quite egotistical, and finds most others around it to be inferior... Unless you can become one of its special people. He's a bit gruff and scary-looking, but when he cares about someone, he can bake them a mean apple pie. His friends often joke that he is an old man at heart : always grumpy, complaining about having to stay at home, but will shower you in baked goods. He makes a living off of furry art commissions - he's in the fandom, his fursona is a wolf !

Kyle Swann (he/him), some dude who lives for the bit. He's often the source of hysterical fits of laughter from his buddies, and absolutely loves the attention. He's willing to go to great lenghts for it, often to the point of being just plain annoying. He is very quick-tempered, and his main awful, addicting habit to combat this is to rile other people up instead to make himself feel good and take off a bit of the blame in his mind... His main hobbies are gaming, electronics and philosophy. He works night shifts at a convenience store : he's on disability and specifically asked for the calmest hours, and he doesn't mind being nocturnal !

Cain Scholz (he/him), a man who keeps his loved ones close to him. A bit too close, in fact, he is very sweet and dedicated, yet he can't seem to understand proper boundaries with people, leading to sour encounters. He is a true people-pleaser, for better or for worse... He loves everybody, and wishes for everybody to love him back. He is way too prone to making ridiculous sacrifices for the love and attention of a person that he admires. While he is pretty masculine, having interests such as sports and cars, he's also very flamboyant ! He absolutely loves music and CDs, and has found a job at a record store to honor that.

These four are my absolute favorite things in the whole world. They are a group of four best friends, who eventually fall in love along the story. They are affectionately referred to by my friends and I as... the Hellmen.

And the three others are secondary characters :

David Neumann (he/him), a rather avoidant man with a collected personality. If one does try to befriend him, they should not expect to know... anything about his life, really. He much prefers keeping to himself, separating his private and social life to a suspicious extent. He's distrustful of people in general : he has a very specific worldview which most others would find bizarre. He is extremely focused on the hierarchy of Strenght and Power, wether it be physical, emotional or intellectual. He is constantly trying to prove himself, and worships those more deserving of him. He works as a personal trainer at a gym.

Misato Yokoyama (she/her), a cool girl with a heart of gold and a bit of a fiesty attitude. She craves to be the badass lady of her dreams, and is actively working towards that goal, but is often prone to crashing down momentarily due to low self-esteem. She's a bit of a perpetual mess, saying the wrong things to people on accident while pushing the boundaries of herself... However, she is unendingly loyal, and will fistfight anyone who looks at her friends wrong. Her main passion is tattooing and piercing, and has managed to turn this into a job after getting hired at a parlor.

Malek Bensaïd (they/xe/ze), a cat lover riot grrrl who doesn't exactly know how to emote properly. Xe is friendly and polite, and does like company, but almost never knows what to say during a conversation and prefers to be a listener in an exchange. Xe doesn't really let anyone know if xe likes them, either, keeping around an air of mystery... Ze could not like you at all, but finds it important to keep up a calm and respectful demeanor instead of bothering too much with interpersonal drama. Ze works night shifts at the same convenience store as Kyle.

These three, along with Cain, form another close friend group. They hit the gym together, and they're all in a punk band, with Cain as the vocalist, Misato as the batter, David as the guitarist and Malek as the bassist.

Before you continue, i have to warn you that the lore is centered around themes of suicide. If you just wanna see more pretty drawings, look for the star (✮)

As the name implies, Hellbreak is set in a version of Hell which is based off of Dante's Divine Comedy. In the first part of the original work, Inferno, Dante presents to us a rendition of Hell separated in nine "circles", where the sinners are separated by which sin they have committed, and awarded a fitting punishment. When i say that the Hell in Hellbreak was based off of Dante's, i do mean it quite literally : sometime along the 14th century, a kingdom of bird-like demons, existing on a higher plane and harnessing the powers of the occult, have taken it upon themselves to create a Hell, Heaven and Purgatory for human souls in order to settle a ridiculously heavy karmic debt against their God, whom they have tried to rebel against in the past. To settle this debt, they were given the vague directive of "helping humanity"... Whatever that means. This artificial afterlife is only the most ridiculous stunt they've pulled, and is run by the most massive nation state on their world. With the majority of their tax money, of course.

(I have drawn designs for the demons, but they're not definitive yet, and i'm not confident in showing them before i'm done. Stay tuned !)

The story follows a group of young adults who ended up in the seventh circle, the circle of Violence, where the souls of those who have murdered the self or others are sent. There, the souls are punished with immortality : those who have killed others will never know the satisfaction of taking another life again, and those who've committed suicide will have to stay alive and breathing for the rest of their days. It seems like a fitting punishment, or so most of these demons think... As the residents of this circle settle down and get the time to heal, to most it starts to range from mild annoyance to luxury. The worst thing in the seventh circle would probably rather be the constant heat, frequent sandstorms or the scarce water supplies.

Cain, Darwin, Scott and Kyle are a group of four best friends who've found eachother in the arid depths of the seventh circle, bonding over similar humor and experiences. All four are victims of suicide, like many other friends and residents. However, two years in, despite most of their friends showing signs of resilience and healing despite the economical struggles of being a new Hell resident, they seem to be lagging behind on recovery, all four having very difficult lives which led to their eventual suicide. A seed was planted in their mind... if only they could die again, they might just do it. This is where another character comes into play - Elle.

Sganarelle u Vert-Mond, also known as Elle, is a demon working in Hell's special operations department. Even among demons, Elle is quite the outcast, with mysterious goals and ideals. After entertaining a friendship with the four, he offers them help, stating that he would be willing to use his power to sneak them into another circle, allowing them to separate the soul from the body, once and for all. He even offers one last gambit : he will take them each to see a person from their past lives in other circles, wether it be old friends or family members who've passed away as well, to settle old wounds and allow them a final resting place. To the already mentally fragile group of friends, this seems like the best, and quite frankly only outcome possible. Elle has reeled them into a forbidden fruit, a final journey where they can finally settle their own debts before putting themselves out of their misery... And absolutely betraying their friends' trust by pretending to go on vacation, despite their impending doom.

As this insane plan unfolds, the four grow more and more lucid... They start to pick at the holes in Elle's story : why would those in other circles simply not die to avoid their specific punishment ? There has got to be something to fear about losing your body to make place for the soul, right ? Why would he propose help when he could get in big trouble for the clandestine transportation of humans between circles ?

Now trapped in the grips of a creature with uncertain goals, fully dependent on him to go home, the four will have to uncover these questions, as well as reflect deeply on their lives, their past, and their future...

...To spoil you a little, they do end up making it out and being brought back to the seventh circle. The story's about healing from trauma and realizing the importance of putting effort in your own healing, and the value of your bonds with others. It takes some time for Cain, Darwin, Scott and Kyle to process what happened with Elle on top of their past, but they are determined to make this work more than ever now that they had to be honest with their friends back in the seventh circle.

✮

Long read, right ? Don't worry, i've got pretty pictures of casual scenarios between these blorboids.

If these two are just going to mess around instead of helping, maybe they should simply leave the kitchen

Lounging... 8D

Yay for cuddles !

Horror movie night with the bros (Cain will not be able to sleep after this)

Snake bitessss :D

Hell yeah brutha

-_-

This is not casual, however, it is my magnum opus

All these are of varying degrees of old. I've got much more art and ramblings in my back pocket, if one so desires. If you've made it this far, then congrats, i bestow you the Hellbreak badge of honor. Hope you liked all this schlop from my brain and found it a bit interesting. Don't be afraid to friend my i am very niceys. :D

That is all. Toodles