Hello! Hope you had a nice week.
I bring to you today: TITS!
And... a peek into the future of the story. In it, Johnny, Christine, Arthur, Barbie, Dexter and Willow will manifest in new ways. SUPER ways that is! They will discover the ability to transform into SUPER versions of themselves. Just as characters do in Chinese cartoons!
We get to witness Arthur´s super-form in the first chapter, acting as a stern judge (nothing as vulgar as a seeker of revenge). As the story develops, all of the cast will have a change to showcase their super-selves, pretty hype stuff.
I want to delve a bit into the logic at work behind the designs of the two Christian heroes featured in IN HELL; Arthur and Barbie.
Friedrich Nietzsche famously said "Christianity is Platonism for the masses". The core idea of both systems of thought is to value the "beyond" above the "material world" the "here and now", the world we inhabit. The distance between said "beyond" and our "mundane", "lowly" reality is then labelled "sin". Barbie and Arthur are both Platonists; they worship "the beyond" (what lies beyond the boundaries of existence) otherwise known as "Nothingness". They are, at heart, nihilists.
Their super forms both illustrate that concept, as they are both "empty" in a way.
Barbie´s is fashioned after a blow up doll; a creature filled with the breath of another (a lonely lover, or the breath of God perhaps). She, like her counterpart, is all surface. Arthur´s takes inspiration from the idea of the "hollow knight" a knight that lives for duty alone, a man that is literally NOTHING but an uniform, a servant of a higher cause. There is so much latent in both of them, so much power, so much mystery, I am so eager to share more of what they can do, what they are, what they will reveal. Patience Geladaa!
You may think I despise their hypocrisy, but I understand them as important, resplendent links in the never-ending chain of human evolution.
There is actually great beauty and great merit to these two creatures. You will discover them as being worthy of awe, respect, admiration, worship even (perhaps) as the story unfolds. For now, be content with the spectacle of their forms. There are many MANY things to notice about them, many ideas and emotions encoded into their design... try and exhaust what they can offer, KNOW there is more than you can guess.
See you next week!