Thank ya so much for going through all the trouble to comment! I'm glad that Helstalt resonated with ya that much =w=
Lel very happy to hear the more personal anecdotes had a positive spin onto the text! Lel writing the zine was def an effort in trying to write something that I would find interesting to read. Too many long dry blocks of texts with small fonts ends up being a chore/pain (literally sometimes) for me to read TwT.
Hmm yeah I'd be down to further expand on devils at least that much. The sequel zine I'm making is going to expand on Yerrick and it's inhabitants. Got at least one area I can have them show up for a bit.
To hear that you have theories on this is honestly mindblowing. I never thought anything I would make, would have people get invested enough to have em. But lel fair if ya don't want to share for reasons you listed~.
I love not knowing the full picture on things in regards to settings like this. Demon's souls is a big fave for that. I can't remember if it had any or minimal compared to future games, but item descriptions were alot less clairvoyant flavor text and much more just plain descriptions from the player's view. And most lore stuff came from talking to NPCs and experiencing the world. That might've unconsciously affected how I wrote this zine lel.