Once upon a time, Georgia was understood as the archetypical angelic hero. With but a small prayer, she could transform from a teenage girl to an immaculate angel, like an evangelical magical girl.

Able to bring forth up to six wings, like a seraph before a mortal without the blessings of a prophet, Georgia could take to the air with unparalleled agility. She could conjure flames and lights, lay hands and heal, take great beatings in stride. She had telekinesis and levitation. And she could be summoned by an earnest call, appearing before her caller faithfully. Her powers were great, her motivations were pure, and her hopes were high.

But this is no longer the case.

The Hostess is no more. Georgia has lost. Georgia has changed. Deeds have undone her, and changed her forever.

Her angelic form has twisted, as her two forms have collapsed in on one another. Georgia’s wings can shrink down, small enough to pull clothes over them, but she will never again be without them. Her shining halo has fizzled into a dull red haze in her eyes, flickering back to life with a sickly red glow from them and around her head when she uses her powers. Georgia’s flames burn hotter and sear further into great and terrible fires, while her light is no more. No longer can she heal others, while her own recovery is less so miraculous and more irritatingly fast for those who would rather cripple than kill. Her telekinetic abilities are only as strong as she is, but much faster, much more violent. Floating freely is no longer an option; her wings must flap, as is the rule for every wingéd beast of the Earth. And to summon her requires not a call but a demand. A lock of hair. A piece of her clothing. Something of Georgia’s must be taken and burned in a circle of blood in order to call upon her, so that the caller may drag her through space into a bound circle. Georgia too can demand, however. With her own blood and something of hers, Georgia has learned how to tear open her own rift to another location and go or reach there, just as others might do to drag her to them. She who was once called an angel is no longer the same, as the rules of blood and force smother the powers of good intentions. It was once said that the Hostess bore angelic magic. So, in fact, it seems that whatever manner of magic Georgia might be said to have is no less innately divine than any human.

Like the mythical demon, even when she was Hostess, Georgia can be bound by three things, two secrets which she guards closely. First, the matter of her summoning. So long as not a foot is placed across the barrier, she is bound, and cannot cross it so long as nothing else does. While not a permanent trap, as reapplying blood constitutes crossing it, to summon is to stop her from acting, to keep her confined for a spell, and to have a captive audience to levy demands upon. And once the seal is broken or faded away, she is catapulted back to where she came from, unless she is invited to stay and accepts. Then, there is the bargain and the promise. If Georgia should, as the person she was born to be, promise she, as Judy, will see a given thing done if the person asking her to promise offers her something in return, Judy will be compelled to follow through the moment her end is met. But the greatest binding is a secret that has assuredly no holders left except for Georgia herself. To know her true name is to know her, and to know her true name is to bind her. To call Georgia by her true name is to levy one’s will upon her, to be her keeper. If one were to ask “Judith Ethel Benjamin” to jump, her very bones would have no choice but to ask “how high?”

These greater weaknesses, of course, are not her only ones. Georgia can take punches, stabbings, and even some bullets, certainly, but she is not invulnerable. Even more, though she is fairly strong, two strong men can surely hold her down. She is neither wholly angel nor demon, but still human in many meaningful ways. Other than burning, she may be frozen, poisoned, or crushed just as any normal person might. Her wings can have their feathers shot or plucked. She still bleeds, even if she does bleed less than a normal person might. Whether or not she will indeed age, there are many, many other things in the world which can beckon the shroud of death.

The shattered persona of Hostess reconstitutes into a strange, idiosyncratic, and unstable being. The Hostess of yesterday shines through sometimes, as Georgia still finds herself hopelessly sentimental and plagued by questions of right and wrong. A rumbling politeness and an unsteady kindness characterize Georgia’s interactions with those she finds inoffensive. But Anathema is easily offended, easily disgusted. Just as Hostess held a rigid sense of right and wrong, Anathema is equally rigid. Georgia fights through heartfelt scorn to present her lost decency, at once enraged with herself when she is friendly and cordial, and fighting against herself when she is awful to others. Georgia is, ultimately, a burning wreck of her own perceptions. She is sick, utterly sick, of offering any kindness to anyone, while simultaneously instinct-driven to be charitable. Her wrath and her crippled optimism wrestle, tugging hair and screaming, when she interacts with others. Georgia doesn’t know precisely what she wants, who she is, or why she bothers, but she knows she can never go back. The past is poisoned and the future is barren, and the only certain feelings Georgia can identify remain bitter wrath, dry-mouthed, guilt-addled horror, and piercing daggers of delight. Anathema to the old mask she once wore, the calm she summons is now sinister, for it is wrapped in a half-forced, half-uncontrollable, painfully joy-addled, cackling and weeping catharsis ever-running from the next terrible dose of guilt.

Before there was Anathema, before there was Hostess or Georgia, there was Judy. Judith Ethel Benjamin was born in Eclipse Bay to a single mother—a mother whose name has been wiped away until even Judy struggled to remember it. But Judy remembers her mother’s face, even as her voice, her embrace, and the comforts of her love have all slowly decayed. Anywhere else, the birth of a winged, divine-seeming baby might have made more news. But in Solhaven, the privacy of superhumans receives a modicum of respect, even in the face of a world always eager to examine them. And Judy’s mother knew better than to advertise a superhuman child. How many young superhumans, after all, have been kidnapped by those who would seek to use them for selfish ends? So mother Benjamin kept things quiet, kept her daughter closely by her side at all times, and came to rely on the local synagogue for support through the kindness of her rabbi. With Rabbi Pasternak’s help, young Judy was kept guarded from the world for two gentle years.

Of course, nature is indifferent to the needs of humans. Eclipse Bay, the seaside city it is, fell victim to a great storm when Judy was only two. Scattered to the winds, the Benjamins moved away from the shores of Eclipse Bay and Solhaven to live with a relative of the good rabbi’s for a time, a small ways outside of Skyline City. Until, that is, Pastor Gray reached out. A famous televangelist based out of Skyline City, Gray offered to put up mother Benjamin and her daughter in a nice home, near a nice private school, in “recognition of our shared Judeo-Christian heritage” and to give “such a gift from the Heavens above as your girl a safe place to grow roots.” How could a single mother refuse such a generous offer? For three years, in spite of bumps along the road, most of all Pastor Gray’s routine check-ins and invitations to “join the flock,” things seemed to be going well. With the financial support offered from the coffers of Pastor Gray’s Clear Skies Ministries, mother Benjamin stayed home and homeschooled her daughter and worked nights, intent on protecting her from the terrible wider world as best as she could.

But mother Benjamin failed to protect herself.

One night, she failed to return from work. And Judy was left all alone, until Pastor Gray came to check on the family that day, and found young Judy all alone, worrying for her mother. A missing persons report went out, and they waited with bated breath. But mother Benjamin never resurfaced. And so Judy was left alone, with no kin, without a will from her mother to see her cared for, and without any direction whatsoever. A calm before the next storm arose, as Pastor Gerald Gray and his wife, Jeanie Gray, stepped up and brought a young girl into their once-childless home. And then the storm hit shore, as Rabbi Pasternak came to contest for adoption. In another world, it could have been a fair fight. But she could never have hoped to afford the same legal counsel and display the same financial backing that the Grays could. But the rabbi, she held on, proclaiming that it was her intent, as a friend of Judy’s mother and someone who Judy knew as an aunt, dragging out the fight in courts for two years until the decision was finally made.

For the Grays had discovered an ace to break the Rabbi’s resolve. Jeanie Gray had, as many stern southern women might do when dealing with, used Judy’s full name when the young girl stepped too far out of line. And while of course, it was one thing for such a calling to get a child’s attention, the way Judy responded aroused the interest of the Grays. Judy’s name was a chain that could be yanked—a means of control that the young girl barely understood, and that could be made blessédly subtle. Judith Ethel Benjamin was told many things. Judith Ethel Benjamin had many ideas drilled into her mind. And within two years, Judith Ethel Benjamin’s course was forever diverted. She was a Gray now. She was no longer her mother’s little girl. And she would never revert to the care of Debbie Pasternak, for to rebuke a woman so viciously in court, to declare how terrible she was for bringing this fight upon a poor child, was an insurmountable stain on the Rabbi’s case, when it came from the very child herself. So Rabbi Pasternak disappeared into the winds, and the last vestiges of a different life were gone.

There was more to be done, when it came time to reveal Judy to the world of the Ministries. More suggestions, more whisperings, more ideas for Judy came as the case reached its conclusion. And by the end of it, there was no more Judy. Judy was a tainted name for the young girl. The reveal was to be a new life; the reveal of her adoption by Pastor Gray would be at the girl’s own dedication. And for her dedication and new life, her new parents offered her a new name in commemoration of her new beginnings. Georgia Gray was dedicated by her new family, and joined the Gray ministry with a vigour seen and expected by few. In time, Judith Ethel Benjamin became less useful, and Georgia Gray was all that was needed. Georgia, the pastor’s daughter, was a charming addition to the Grays’ ministry. All smiles and all cheer, their bouncing little girl became a third darling for the congregation in short order. Gifts and affection flowed like water, as a massive community so eager to exalt sent her rising to the pedestal on which her new family stood.

The shiny facade hardened and grew in its sheen with every month, digging deeper down as the Grays’ newly-resurfaced daughter settled into her pre-ordained role as a superpowered darling of the evangelical world. In time, her powers began to show themselves, each heralded as a fresh blessing showing the world the incredible light present within Clear Skies Ministries. Shortly after Georgia’s eleventh birthday, she revealed to a cheering crowd her intent to use her powers for good. Her father soon launched into a sermon about clearing the world of sin, of using blessings to plant seeds, and of showing bravery and faith in the face of the world. Whose idea it was precisely to send Georgia out into the world as a superhero at her age has been lost to time, even as she now muses often as to what extent the influence played in this particular decision—to what extent it was a decision made by Georgia and to what extent it was made for Judith Ethel Benjamin.

Whatever the case may be, her training began, and her first debut in the world at large followed a year later.

A twelve-year-old evangelical superhero joined the stage of superheroes as Hostess—the Evangelical Magical Girl, as she was often dubbed by the press. In the early years, Hostess saw little in the way of active danger, serving more so as a symbol and as a mascot for the real heroes of Skyline City. But her push to do more was not so easily satiated, and Hostess slowly but surely became a prolific heroine in her own respect. By sixteen, Hostess was responding to calls from congregants across the city. By seventeen, she was an eager member of as many local hero organizations as her ministry deemed acceptable and were willing to accept her, responding to every call she could, night and day, every day of the year. Her armour had a camera embedded in it, streaming her every move, to the accolades of the ever-ballooning congregation of Clear Skies Ministries. Hostess took down, healed, and prayed with all manner of malcontents and villains over the years. Every defeated foe received prayers, healing hands, and a stern warning before being handed off to local authorities, as any straight-laced hero might do.

But as her work with other heroes expanded in scope, the evangelical superheroine’s world began to broaden, bit by bit. The world was not so simple for a great many heroes of the world as good or bad. There were a thousand shades of light and dark grey, and even more shades that were hard to tell either way. The older heroes especially offered the young, wide-eyed heroine their own perspectives time and time again. And even the sturdiest rock cannot withstand every wave. As Hostess became an adult, a hero not so exclusively bound to her parents, she became confronted with these difficult questions she was once blind to. When it was necessary to ensure someone could no longer do any harm to others, it sometimes meant enacting things that were not punishments, but rather preventative measures. And all of those many people she had sent towards the prison system? Some, many, in fact, had lives that placed their intentions into question.

Do intentions matter? What acts are unforgivable? Are there times where grace is a cruelty?

Morality is so simple when externalities are not involved.

Now, what did the Father have to say about all of this?

The question of good was a question of faith. To be faithful is to be rightly-guided. To be unfaithful is to have none of this guidance. If the Bible says to do it, then it must be done without question. If the Bible is forbidden, then it is strictly and wholly forbidden.

How can one work with heathen heroes? Are they even heroes if they do not follow the good word?

Then Georgia finally turned around.

Villains are not the only to commit the sin of greed.

All Hostess wanted was to do right by her faith. That’s what she told herself, anyway. But how could she till a field if she didn’t know she needed to help grow? She and her family had never wanted for anything. They had a mansion, jets, and more through the Ministries—all for spreading the good word, of course. God had repaid their seeds in spades, with blessings for virtue raining down upon them. How many other ministries could claim to have among their numbers somewho who actually answered prayers. Hostess laid hands for her father. Hostess answered calls and defended the congregation at every turn. And yet, the day after her baptism, she realized that she had never actually heard most of the prayers she was answering. When she was called, she followed marching orders and slew beasts, stopped burglaries, and saved lives. A quick photo, maybe a comforting gesture, and she’d be off to the next piece of her endless service.

Georgia resolved to start spending some time with some of those whose calls she’d answered, speaking with them as the Good Lord did with all. When there was no other immediate call to answer, she would sit, drink coffee, offer treats from her satchel, and spend time really meeting the people she’d been called to help. And once the gratitude subsided, what she began to hear shook her to her core. The seeds weren’t growing. Congregants who had been with them since she was born were still impoverished. Dutiful faithful who had sent seeds in the mail again and again over the years were sick and still-dying. Her hands healed flesh wounds, but they had failed countless times to beat back cancer. Good, hardworking, faithful people who had done nothing wrong were going unpaid time and time again. At first it surprised her. Then it concerned her. And eventually, it horrified her. Was she a liar? Was she a money-changer in the temple? Was she a False Prophet?

Her father assured her what she was seeing must have had some explanation. Deficits of faith unseen, hidden failings, a need to wait just a bit longer—if salvation was not just around the corner, then it was their fault for not having enough faith.

But how could it be the case for so many people? How could so much of the flock be astray if their shepherds were working so hard for them?

Georgia looked to their finances. The family’s finances watered the seed of doubt. How could they and the church sit upon such wealth and not use it to the fullest extent for the purposes of charity? How could they justify such a hoarding? How could they justify collecting such vast donations even as the merchandise with her face on it was already bringing in a formidable profit that could cover all of their expenses, all of the church’s expenses, and more?

Judith Ethel Benjamin was finally told to pursue this line of questioning into the finances of her church no further.
Judith Ethel Benjamin was told that those who were suffering deserved to reap what they’d sown.
Judith Ethel Benjamin was told that she had gone astray.

And soon, Judith Ethel Benjamin had a husband picked out for her.

It would be the wedding of the evangelical century. Pastor Thomas Mallory, from the acclaimed Mallory International Faith-Community based out of Nova City, had a son just Georgia’s age who would make a splendid husband. Georgia knew him. He was friendly, charismatic, and attractive enough. He was next in line for his father’s seat, and had proven himself a spectacular minister in his own right. And with any luck, together, the two ministries could grow even greater, with two powerhouses in the evangelical world joining forces to fight the forces of Satan in the world—Mason Mallory from the stage, and Georgia Gray from the skies.

Georgia tuned in to watch Mason preach. He laid hands. He hollered and yelled praises to the Lord with his father. The prosperity gospel in Nova City was just the same. A month before her wedding, Georgia went to Nova City to work with the Mallorys and get to know her second faith community. And as she answered calls, she saw and heard more of the same. And Mason and Pastor Mallory had the same things to say as her father. A seed that fails to grow isn’t getting enough sun and water.

Hostess was losing her shine. Hostess was wavering. There were men and women praying to her. And yet, when she heard a prayer, she actually answered it. How many among either congregation could say they had actually received His Grace? If ‘He’ existed at all, ‘He’ was not listening to anyone here. And why was this? Why were all of these deep wellsprings of faith not growing any seeds?

Look in the mirror.

Georgia began to see a different reflection. Hostess was not a hero, but an idol. Hostess was a crook held high by False Shepherds. And for all of her hard work, she was leading so many well-meaning people astray. Georgia wanted so badly to blame herself. She wanted so badly to say that her own faltering was simply the Devil’s call, grasping at the most exalted as he once did to Lord Jesus Himself. But her seed had been sprouting bountifully. Or was it a real seed?

Judith Ethel Benjamin remembered how her old name had been whipped out time and time again in the face of her questions. Her mother and father had not done so since many, many years before. Judith Ethel Benjamin, not Georgia Gray, was being instructed that she ought to marry Mason Mallory. And she was here, in Nova City, without having even questioned it for a moment.

A few days before her wedding, Georgia asked Mason to order Judith Ethel Benjamin to do a simple task. Mason, amused and perplexed by the request, obliged. And to his amusement, his wife-to-be immediately stood up and made him a sandwich, just as he had jokingly asked. Georgia would have done it anyway, but felt an intense pull from within—she couldn’t bear not to. So Georgia asked Mason to try again, asking for something more difficult or more unreasonable. So he did. Three times. Georgia did a backflip, ate a penny, and then slept with him even though they were not yet married.

Judith Ethel Benjamin could be made to do anything. So what had she been made to do under this demand? Her memories snapped back across the suggestions and commands she’d heard over the years. There were no suggestions, actually. Only commands. Georgia had been created. Hostess had been created. She was not the same person before. And it felt like every hour, this intricately-constructed woman named Georgia and serving as Hostess was unravelling, as what was her and what was made a part of her became so apparent yet so hard to separate.

Georgia called Rabbi Pasternak in the middle of the night. And the Rabbi told her side of the story. The Rabbi spoke of who Judy could have once been. Those few, paltry puzzle pieces jostled more and more of Hostess loose. In the wee hours of the night, Georgia clutched the phone tightly to her cheek, whispering quiet responses through tears as the Rabbi slowly, hesitantly, offered her perspective. How Pastor Gray had scowled at her after every court date. How Pastor Gray had refused to let her anywhere near Judy, when Georgia knew that Judith Ethel Benjamin had been told that “Auntie Deb” was too busy to see her, that she didn’t want to talk over the phone, and that she was only doing it because her scriptures told her it was her job to do so. That she held little love for Judy, that as an unmarried woman with no husband, how could she want to care for a child? Georgia only asked questions, never answering the Rabbi’s own. And when Georgia asked about her mother, Aunt Deb spoke of her dear friend Rosie.

Rosie was her name.

Rosie—mother Benjamin—Georgia’s—Judy’s mother, was working nights, yes. She was working in Ecliptica, doing the accounting for a number of little bars and clubs in the area. Aunt Deb couldn’t say for certain, but she had managed to track down the manager of the place Rosie was working for the night she’d disappeared. And he had thought she’d heard Rosie scream in the distance, but saw nothing when he rushed out to see. Rosie was gone, and the cameras nearby had all been shot. It seemed like a professional hit.

Someone wanted Judy’s mother dead.

Georgia hung up and rushed to the bathroom as it hit her. The ‘consulting’ expenses from the month of her mother’s disappearance were even higher than normal. She had occasionally seen her father speaking with well-dressed figures who she’d never seen in church, and would never see again. Could it be? Could it truly be that his hands were so dirty?

Her wedding crept closer. As the needles occasionally poked her while her wedding dress was getting her final fittings, she could find no will to even wince. Her gut kept wrenching as she tried to convince herself it wasn’t true. But she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t be sure.

Georgia broke down on the night before her wedding. She begged her adoptive mother to tell her the truth. To tell her why Rabbi Pasternak felt they were kept apart. To tell her why things weren’t getting better for their congregations, even as they grew ever larger and their faith seemed to shine ever brighter. Her father came to join her mother as Georgia continued to plead, to ask for the truth, the true and honest truth. And after nothing seemed to work to soothe her worries, after Georgia remained inconsolable, Gerald finally ordered Judith Ethel Benjamin to stop her blubbering, to stop her whining. He commanded her to obey. To obey him. To obey her husband. Judith Ethel Benjamin was repeated again and again, until Georgia felt numb and her mind felt foggy. And as she fought to stay awake after being commanded to go to bed and rest for her big day, she knew what she heard. She heard Gerald groan that they had not gone through so much trouble just for her to be this way. Jeanie remarked that so many people were ungrateful for what they already had. The ungrateful shitstains don’t deserve any more.

On her big day, Georgia awoke to a flurry. Even without a command, she was dragged around, pampered and powdered, shoved into her dress, and prepared for her marriage to Mason Mallory. It all felt so hazy. It all felt so wrong. It all felt so necessary. It all made her want to puke.

And just then, Georgia felt Gerald’s arm wrapped around hers, ready to bring her down the aisle. The cameras shone. The lights were blinding. And into her ear, he whispered one more command. She needed to smile for the cameras. It’s supposed to be the happiest day of her life, after all. Georgia’s face twisted into an empty-headed grin, showing the crowd her pearly-whites as she clung tightly to this man who called himself her father, uncertain in every step as her blood began to boil and her heart wrenched. She began to shake as they approached the steps.

With shaky hands, Georgia Gray launched Gerald Gray into the ground as he leaned in to give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. As he flew across the room, the beginnings of Judith’s name escaped the lips of Jeanie Gray, but a command never followed, for the woman was incinerated by a burst of unbound flames. Georgia’s halo emerged for a moment as the flames arced through the air, flickered, flashed, and then turned red as her so-called father smashed into the wall and the flames consumed her so-called mother, the rest of her so-called family, and a number of bystanders. Mason attempted to intervene himself, leaping towards her in an attempt to tackle her to the ground. “Judith” he sputtered, before his windpipe became crushed by her own hand.

Georgia Gray could not stop smiling, even as she shook and the tears rolled down her cheeks. As the crowd hurried to flee, she turned again to look at the stage. There stood Pastor Thomas Mallory, ready only moments ago to see his son married.

In a moment that has since circulated online as an infamous piece of live superhuman footage, Georgia screamed at him, asking, “Are their seeds not good enough?”

She repeated this at the man six times, cutting him off each time he responded.

“Their seeds aren’t bad. No, y’all just sell bad seeds.”

And it was with Pastor Thomas Mallory’s blood that Hostess wrote:


Immediately thereafter, Georgia Gray disappeared from the public scene for a month as a nationwide manhunt emerged, and Hostess was no more. But every old picture of her was rendered useless soon, for her body twisted and changed every day. A hint led authorities and heroes to the home of Rabbi Deborah Pasternak. And it was there that the forever-changed Georgia Gray knelt, trying desperately to look for Judy within herself. She bade her Rabbi—her Aunt—to run, but Auntie Deb refused to leave her side as the authorities closed in. A single gunshot was all it took to rend the life from Deborah Pasternak. Perhaps things might have been different if the gunfire had gone differently. But Georgia—but Judy—but Georgia could do nothing to save this woman who had just come back to her, and had spent a month caring for her and trying to convince her to dig down, heal, and submit to the consequences of her actions.

And what had that gotten the Rabbi?

A fire rose in Eclipse Bay, and with it, so too did Hostess forevermore.

Anathema has risen. Georgia has entered into the bitter embrace of her rage, and sworn herself as Anathema. Now, rather than a shining light naively hiding the taint of the “righteous,” Georgia has found herself a dark shadow knowingly lifting up the earnestly “wicked” with her smoke and fire so they might plant new seeds of their own.

Anathema has changed much since her Hostess days. Shining golden locks have turned a charred black. Golden angelic eyes have turned a sinister red, as the glow that comes from them and surrounds her head has followed suit. Her perfect pearly whites have sharpened as her canines have twisted into primal fangs. Her mouth sometimes bleeds from her uncomfortable and still-unfamiliar bite, as her tongue, lips, cheeks, and gums occasionally catch the wrath of these alien jaws, particularly in times of intense activity—bringing one to wonder whether her lips are so vividly red from the liberal application of lipstick or from the stains of blood alone. Her veins pulse not blue but red, as if her blood itself burns with the rage of the fallen.

Hostess was a paragon of traditional feminine strength wrapped in a cloak of angelic might. Her musculature was concealed and subdued, her form effortlessly dancing her church’s impossibly narrow path between chaste purity and fertile abundance, beauty and obscenity, femininity and harlotry. Anathema has fallen from that path, torn from the perfectly average 5’4” height to a stunning 6’4”, hard-earned muscles unbound from their chastened confines to declare their worth, and, as an intricately-curated diet has given way to an oscillating mess of bitter utilitarianism and hedonistic indifference, so too has her form settled into a more natural, human shape, with human curves, human fat and slump, and human angles, rather than a stilted and alien curve and perk that called forth questions of plastic surgery by critics of the church. And yet again, as she becomes more human, so too does she lose humanity elsewhere. Georgia’s six wings, now blackened as her hair has, do not disappear but may merely shrink down into little appendages still reaching out as far as her elbows when extended. And to her enraged disgust, from just above her buttocks, a tail has slunk down to rest its pop-culture devil’s spade-tip on the floor when idle. She wonders, will horns come next?

In spite of all of her changes, Anathema has clung to some things. She has had her armour reworked, stained black, and dons her modified suit and sword on good days as a sort of homage to the crusader she was, and to the mercenary she has become. But on others, she wears whatever she pleases. Anathema has, in truth, been seen scorching city blocks in pyjamas before. Georgia cannot abide by pure pageantry any longer. To take human lives is to return to the level of men. And having fallen to this level, there is no reason to stress about decorations when one doesn’t want to bother.

Anathema is an ally to all those agents of change until they approach success, then returning to an enemy. Many idealistic villains on their back foot can seek an ally in a pinch in Georgia, who most often asks little, if anything, in return, until she inevitably forsakes them when their fortunes turn again. She spits on heroism and yet cannot help but to be bound by the desiccated corpse of idealism lurking within—a villain destroying without purpose is as enemy to her as a hero seeking to uphold the status quo. All those villains who seek to tear the world down and replace it with something better may know Anathema as a foul weather friend.

Georgia is most certainly a villain, having declared it and openly embraced it, and yet she detests it with every other step. At once, Georgia has given up on the very notion of good while feeling inextricably bound to it. And so, what remains to drive her is where her old ways and her new ones do not collide. Georgia cannot bring herself to even attempt to build. Her relationships come unintentionally and poisoned with self-loathing. Her actions cannot reconcile with any shard of her snapped morals, and yet she is gripped by an inexhaustible drive to do something—anything. Georgia is, thus, an easily coveted and eagerly discarded tool for destruction. When another villain wants to build something, Anathema is there, ready to be directed to burn the path as an advance vanguard. She will worship, reject, and then forget just as quickly—a hateful-yet-willing tool, eager to be and yet resentful of being discarded. Georgia will do so much and go so far, as long as she can avert her gaze from the cinders, grasping at the starkly beautiful mental silence that a higher, unquestionable purpose may bring, if only for a moment. Georgia, in short, hungers for purpose, and will allow herself to be faithfully directed until the haunting, disenchanting scorn creeps in as she bears witness to the fruits of her labour.

Hostess once enjoyed a vibrant network of superhero acquaintances, public acclaim, and the hopes and prayers of many. Anathema enjoys none of this. Both as Georgia and Judy, she has no family to look to. Anathema has commanders, but no friends. Georgia follows and yet rarely, if ever, respects. If the intent is change, she will accept. And yet, when it comes time to build something new, Anathema is an aid no longer. The very moment someone’s ambitions approach fruition and approach becoming a facet of the status quo, however small though it may be, her loyalty begins to crumble and the relationship falters as it always does.

Georgia is generally nomadic. Beyond this, she pays a storage unit in each of the four cities, full of all manner of nonsense she collects and refuses to throw out.

Years ago, Hostess went into the world in cross-covered light armour and fought with shield and flaming sword, as might a great warrior of the Heavens above. Anathema operates under no such pretensions. While she still has her sword, Anathema will use any weapon within her grips to the best of her ability as needed, from kitchen knife to automatic weapon.

Hostess was beloved and largely well-regarded even by those who dismissed her heavy-handed religious images, a positive beacon of decency even in the face of problems facing her community. Still, there are those sympathetic who wonder what could have been, had Hostess gone down a different path in her last days as a hero. But even they are scarcely blind to the real path. Charitably, Anathema has been parsed as a testament to the hubris of man—a victim first and a villain second, who was crushed under the demands and cruelty of others into a shattered reflection of what could have been. But every month that goes by, the goodwill gathered by a lifetime of hero work withers away further, and her present comes to the forefront. For more and more, she is no longer a “poor girl driven over the edge,” but a vile lackey to an endlessly revolving door of terroristic villains, who now deals only in destruction—a dirty glove flitting around and hurling fireballs at places she used to protect. And there are others, including some of her former most ardent supporters, who still go even further. For them, Anathema is something unholy, corrupted, and vile, a satanic horror come to Earth in the guise of a superheroine. At best, Anathema is looked upon with a mixture of pity and horror. At worst, she is despised with a degree of religious fervor reserved for few other superhumans. And even villains must ask, does even Anathema respect herself?

Hostess was agile, intimate, and focused most of all on incapacitation. For Anathema, close quarters are an unexpected outcome, rather than a pursued goal. Anathema embraces the fighting retreat, blasting fire and whatever else she can rather than facing her foes. For to look a foe in the eye is to see their soul—a soul which Anathema intends to rip out, while also loathing to see the moment it happens.