enmuni

Calling All Heroes and Villains!

@estylwen Looks like Anathema is not the only supervillain with a background in fuck-up Christianity! I’m eager to see the outreach already.

Calling All Heroes and Villains!

@enmuniI am down for villainy collaboration.

@Estylwen

Curiously, I think Masked Solaris is probably one of the only villains Anathema definitely would have never before worked for. But if he’s got the interest of other villains, such as Oak and Pestilence, then I think she’d be too intrigued not to take up any offer, if at least to figure out what’s got everyone working together all of a sudden. You reckon he might have any gang members hanging back outside police lines to get a pulse on what’s going on outside? I imagine they’d definitely notice.

Calling All Heroes and Villains!

---

Eclipse Bay, Simply Storage Solutions, Unit 13

Superhero news was always something, wasn’t it? Nova City Bank had some robbery going on, and it sounded like every damned superhero in the city was fixing to dogpile whatever band of misfits was—gas? Oh, this was getting juicier. Normal bank robbers kept things simple. Straightforward. Money in the bag—no dye packs—get out. Power outage across a whole city block? One of the channels reporting creeping vines? Pink smoke seeping out from under the door? That kind of showmanship certainly narrowed things down. It had to be supervillains. Plural. Even if there weren’t multiple in there, there absolutely had to be multiple hands on this one.

Look at that! The news was catching on too! Shame they weren’t getting any close-ups. A tablet screen was small enough already without the police barricades being so far out!

Georgia set her tablet down with a sigh. The news was just repeating the facts. Half of the live coverage was snapping away to get back to their stupid twenty-four hour cycles. And the local channel was still straight-laced enough that it wasn’t going to make any reaches.

‘So let’s think about this…’

Who would be in there? Vines were easy. There were only a handful of superhumans with any given power set, and an even smaller handful in play in any given location.

“Proud of you, hun,” she mockingly chirped. The local news had cracked it. Obviously vines meant Poison Oak. Who else could it have been? Someone from out of town? But the gas didn’t sound like his style. He’d use his pollen, wouldn’t he? Yes, that sounded right. So it was definitely, 100% the work of more than one villain. But that begged the question of who?

Villains counted a fair number of chemists, chemical-enthusiasts, and generally mad scientists among their numbers, definitely. Poison Oak was one of them—but definitely not the sort that’d be working with something looking like that. Did Poison Oak have any friends? Scratching her head, Georgia couldn’t think of any. The man didn’t often collaborate. At least, she’d never fought him and another villain at once. But the world was changing, wasn’t it? This wasn’t Poison Oak’s normal crime scene. Nothing about this was altogether that normal, except for how a bank robbery was just absolutely typical fare for supervillains. Banks were big. Banks were bad. Banks were easy punching bags, for how they pushed the little guy around and yet had the inconvenient weakness of having all that money just sitting around. It took a brave bastard to raid a gold reserve. It didn’t take supervillainy to mug a rich guy. But banks? Banks were just right for villains.

If she were ever going to go after such a big haul on her own, she’d do things differently. This was sloppy. This was showy. But that was the only choice a lot of people had, wasn’t it? And banks were getting ever-wiser to creative approaches anyway. Georgia could still remember the first time she’d toured the Federal Reserve and seen all the anti-teleportation measures that they’d implemented. There were good guys working on fixing weaknesses, after all. But even the best defences can be blown up, burned, or otherwise shredded through with the right will.

So banks. What mad scientists were into banks? That was a frustratingly long list. It wasn’t as if there were many evil universities giving out evil research grants. So supervillain scientists needed to get their money from elsewhere. And again, banks were just really good targets. So that really didn’t narrow it down either, did it?

But that meant there were two mad scientists in there. Poison Oak and someone else. Maybe there was a mad scientist convention going on in Nova City? Now that sounded interesting. Some new work would be nice. It had been a week—a maddening, painfully paralyzing week since her last job. Anathema needed to get going. Her fingers itched with a need to do something. Do anything. The seeds of wrath were sprouting again, damn it all. They were sprouting and getting ready to bear fruit!

Georgia’s glance snapped back to her tablet. Oh, mercy below and above! There was so much to be done.

She had to at least see it! She had to at least hear it! The carnage was beautiful—hopefully the building would explode. But the people! But the burning! That was too good to miss. A job or a show—either would be something. Georgia looked at the little trash can full of wrappers and empty cans. Maybe a nice bed for a little while would be good, too. Most villains had—or could easily get their hands on—a perfectly good bed to sleep on in their lovely, lovely, vile, vile bases. And air conditioning. And showers. Better showers than the private gyms had, anyway. The water texture and quality definitely varied. But it was so, so much better. And to have purpose? Something to do? Something to distract from the all-consuming silence?

That was perfect. News sucks anyway. Better to see it in-person.

Georgia chucked her iPad down on her bare mattress. There was a coffee shop across the street that wasn’t technically off limits, so it seemed. But what to wear for observing? A tank top torn along the back and underwear wasn’t going to cut it. The armour was way, way too much and too conspicuous. Fuck it, no point wasting time. Georgia called a clean pair of athletic shorts from the top of the basket full of comfortable day clothes. Neon green? Nope.

She chucked it to the floor and flicked her wrist to call the next highest out. Red was better. Sure. Red running shorts would be fine. She pulled them up and then hit her tail.

“Right. Can’t have fucking high-rise. Because why could I have it good?” Georgia scowled as she gripped the waistband and ripped the shorts clean off of herself. She chucked the shredded remains into the garbage can and walked over to the basket of comfy clothes. After rummaging through the neatly-folded clothes, she produced some black shorts that definitely wouldn’t go up too far. Fine. That would have to do.

As she pulled them on, she groaned as she remembered the irritating case of her tail. She whipped off her shirt, plucked yesterday’s bra off the back of her chair and clipped it on, and then pulled her tail up and weaved it through, and then pulled the mutilated top back on. With a scowl, she picked out the largest hoodie in eyesight. It was a piece of her own merchandise that so happened to be irritatingly comfortable. She’d scratched off as much of the print as she could be bothered to, but bits and pieces still cling to it, leaving cracked plastic on its front. A bit of one of her old blue eyes. Part of an H and an e. A bit of the flaming sword. Only one of those bonkers superfans would have guessed it was once a Hostess Hoodie, but seeing the bits she couldn’t scrape off still drove Anathema nuts. The stupid grey thing was just too comfortable to chuck.

With a sigh, she pulled the hoodie over her head.

“That’ll do.” she shrugged, mumbling to herself as she inspected herself with her phone camera and preened her hair out of habit. She shook her head, put the phone in the hoodie pocket, and then looked around the room for a moment. Binoculars would be great right about now. She fumbled for her phone again, and found a random hiking supplies store in Nova City.

“Where’s the damn thing…” she continued, waving her phone around the room before laying her eyes on a pocket knife. She tried to flick it open twice, muttered “Goddamnit,” and then pulled at the blade with her fingernails to get it out. Once she got it out, she took a deep breath, held it, rolled up her left sleeve, and slashed her left wrist. A wellspring of deep red blood began to pool as Georgia hissed in pain.

She took a step towards the blood-stained garage door. She slammed her wrist into the metal, pulled it to the left and then right as she fell to the ground, helping keep its trajectory with her hand, and then pushed it back up, right then left, as she stood, to create an oval of blood. She held her hand to her bleeding wrist, and, with a flash of fire, cauterized the wound. As she folded up her knife, she let out a frustrated sigh and whipped around. She slipped on socks, shoved her feet into black tennis shoes, and then grabbed a third sock from a little bin full of socks with holes in them. She shoved it into the centre of the blood oval and scorched it into a fine mist. A rift opened up, showing the interior of the hiking supplies store. Right before she put her foot through the door, she groaned again, flicked both of her wrists, summoning a tote back off the floor and several socks with holes in them, donned the bag, shoved the socks in it, flicked her wrists again to summon her phone and her wallet, and then stepped through the rift.

As she stepped through, she caught movement in the corner of her eye. An employee was standing there, frozen and looking at her with the wide eyes of a man uncertain if he was breathing his last breaths.

Suddenly, Georgia asked, instinctually adopting the flowery, gentle tone she once made a habit of as Hostess, “Sorry, what aisle are the binoculars in?”

The guy flinched as she grimaced and tensed her jaw right after speaking.

“Sorry,” she chirped, before hissing at herself and saying, “I mean...grab me a pair of binoculars. Adjustable ones.”

Looking at the frozen man and giving him not more than a moment to respond, Georgia snapped, “Fucking go on. Git. I’ve got shit to do.”

And he burst into a sprint. Georgia clapped her hands once, and the rift closed. She had just long enough to check her phone and see the latest update from the situation at the bank before he returned, panting and shaking. Georgia took the box in her hand, tore it in half, and incinerated the shredded halves with one hand as she put the binoculars in her tote. Then, she whipped out her pocket knife, pulled it open with her fingernails, and then snapped at the worker again, “You’re done. I’m satisfied with my service. Bye,” as she cut the same wrist again and quickly drew another blood oval. She cauterized the same wound, and then pulled another sock out of her tote, pressed it into the circle, incinerated it, and walked through into the bathroom of the coffee shop across the street from Nova City Bank.

Nova City, a coffee shop across the street from Nova City Bank

Fortunately, this one was empty. The only bad part about appearing in the bathroom was that sometimes there was someone using it, just ready to make a quick pee break into shitting after seeing someone step through a definitely evil-looking blood-red rift. She stepped out of the bathroom, took one look at the line, and then scoffed. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.

Georgia walked casually to the spot where the phone-orders were left, spotted what looked like a large caramel or chocolate frappé, pulled her wallet out of her tote, and grabbed two random bills out of it. She pulled the tagged cardboard bit off the drink as she took it, set the cardboard piece back with one of the bills—a twenty, it looked like—in it, and then craned her head to look at the counter as she stuffed her wallet back into her tote.

Georgia frowned and sighed as she gathered that there were no good donut options. After squinting to see for a moment and grabbing some napkins, she reached out the hand holding napkins with two fingers, and used her three free ones to beckon a croissant, a chocolatine, and—hell, why not—a piece of banana bread out from behind the counter. She caught them in the napkins, fumbling for a moment, and then set down her drink in order to slap the other bill on the counter. Then, she walked out with the stolen drinks, shooting back behind her a glare, daring the overworked baristas and the impatient customers to question her cash. That bill was a fifty, anyway. They’d live.

Finally, she was outside, ready to see the crimes unfold. It was always so much better as a live feature. One of the tables was bare, its chairs stolen by a larger group that looked like it was either done or waiting, but nonetheless eager to see the scene as it unfolded. Georgia hopped up on the table, set down her drink and food, and whipped out her binoculars to begin taking in the show.

This was gonna be good. And maybe there’d be a job opportunity to come…

Calling All Heroes and Villains!

Anathema

Powers/Abilities:

The Fallen Angel

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.

Weaknesses:

Demon in Disguise

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.

Personality:

The Shattered Mirror

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.

Background:

The Fall

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 someone who 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.

Appearance:

Inhumanly Human

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.

Affiliations:

Foul Weather Friend

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.

Motivations:

Bringing an End

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.

Relationships:

Only Orders

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.

Base of Operations:

Hostess the Hoarder

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.

Signature Gear:

Knight in Flaming Armour

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.

Public Perception:

Idol no More

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?

Combat Style:

Getting Some Distance

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.

Calling All Heroes and Villains!

@enmuni Accepted, going full religion is an interesting concept for a character. Ty

@Pumpkinlord

Alright, perfect! Now all I need to do is find my next villain to assist…

Calling All Heroes and Villains!

Here's a free sidekick eager and ready to be one for all manner villains, as long as they're okay with what inevitably comes next! Hope she's a decent fit; I went more for storytelling than balance or tone, so do let me know if there are any particular sticking points.

Anathema

Powers/Abilities:

The Fallen Angel

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.

Weaknesses:

Demon in Disguise

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.

Personality:

The Shattered Mirror

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.

Background:

The Fall

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.

Appearance:

Inhumanly Human

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.

Affiliations:

Foul Weather Friend

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.

Motivations:

Bringing an End

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.

Relationships:

Only Orders

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.

Base of Operations:

Hostess the Hoarder

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.

Signature Gear:

Knight in Flaming Armour

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.

Public Perception:

Idol no More

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?

Combat Style:

Getting Some Distance

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.

Realms of Sun & Shadow

Ramona Lume

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__________________________________________ 24 | Blightborn | Maid for the Royal Residence __________________________________________ Kingdom: Lunaris __________________________________________ Magic Specialty: Water, Air(Minor), Necromancy(Limited theoretical knowledge) __________________________________________ ▼ ✧ Height – 5’4” ✧ Build – Hourglass ✧ Eye Color – Cerulean ✧ Hair Color – Cerulean (Dyed black with soot)

B I O G R A P H Y ‘If you’re reading this, I ask that you pass this on to my mother-in-law, Virginia Lume, born Sala, failing that, my grandmother, Zoe Vicario, born Sala. I only wish that I might confess my truth and leave some fragment of my story, some testament to the searing beauty I have seen and lost, to those who remain. If I am survived by neither, then go ahead, burn this, throw it away, but I pray that you might do so only after you have read it. This will be the last of my voice—the only whispers that I ask survive beyond my grave, if only for a little while. May fate offer you a kindness that it has taken from me. May her hand be gentle to you. May you look gently on me as I write. Thank you. Thank you ten thousand times for reading my last grasps at life, and for giving me the mercy of your compassion. If only for a moment, I ask you to give me this. If you do not know me, I will introduce myself for the last time. My name was Ramona Lume, born Vicario. I was born and raised in a village two days’ travel to the southeast of the capital. For so many years, it was only me and my father. My mother died when she brought me into this world. It is that burden that I first knew, from the moment I took my first breath. My father was a dedicated follower of Seluna—to her, he devoted his life, even before he officially took up the cloth when I was young. Let me tell you about this life: To be a member of the clergy is to bring the entire family into that world. I remember lighting the candles at our little temple as a little girl. I remember the soft robes, the quiet encouragements, and the long prayers. In another world, perhaps I would have joined my father in the cloth. Perhaps it would have been for the best. But I will never know this different world. I live in this one. I did study as if I were bound for the cloth. How could I not? I learned as my father did. It was the temple that taught us, and it was at the temple that I spent most of my time, for there was nowhere else to go but to follow my father there. I admit, though, that this was not my entire life. I just never have understood how to go around without any particular purpose or direction, as a child can. I had my share of fun when I was little, definitely. Could I have had more friends? Could I have laughed more, played more in the mud, wrestled in the snow more, and so on? I probably could have. But I like to imagine that, even if I am probably not a person who has a happy spirit, my early years had as much joy as they did anything else. And I think that’s enough. It would feel wrong to ask for more. But now, I want to write about something that I feel more strongly about than anything else. Love. I have always known the love of family. But even though I mourn that lost love, the love that leaves the biggest gaping hole in my heart is that which I shared with my dear Nico. We had first met when we were both around 12. If only I had known! But we were young—too young to understand such things! It was only when we were sixteen that we became friends. How I loved his company. We would speak for hours and hours about everything under the sun and moon. I learned later that he hoped to impress me, so he would sneak around the temple and read in order to make more conversation! He knew before I did what love meant. How silly I was, to not see that my best friend’s gaze was motivated by love as much as it was by the warmth of friendship! I still remember when he confessed his feelings. It was around the Spring Equinox when he said it to me. He had tried so hard to invite me fishing—it must have taken months! But it was there, by the seaside, as he was reeling in a crab no less, that he asked if I wanted to go with him. Of course I did! And of course, foolish as I was, I failed to understand what he had hoped for. I wish I could write about the funny story of our time dancing around the fire, locking eyes at sunset, and my foolishness being revealed as he leaned in for a kiss, while I blushed and giggled until realizing it was serious. I wish I could write about that perfect first embrace, but what I can write about instead, I think, is in a way just as beautiful. You see, it was around when the blight first settled our lands that we began our journey together. And it was at that same time that my time with my father ended. We did not know, in those days, how the blight would come to poison us all. I was saved only because I had chosen to sleep rather than help at the altar that day. The blight settled in on our temple. My father and the dear old ladies who oversaw the upkeep of the temple were some of the first victims of the blight in the kingdom, as I understand it. And one of those old ladies was Nico’s grand-aunt. Nico and I had always shared in our grief before. Like most people in the world, we never were strangers to the hardships of life. Even more, I had grown up without a mother, and he without a father. We bonded in those shared bitter tastes on our lips, wondering about what could have been, fantasizing about kinder worlds. What was meant to be a day of dancing, for us, was a day of mourning. Our first “I love yous” and promises of devotion were sputtered out through hot tears of grief. I remember telling him while I leaned on his shoulder, as his quiet tears melted into my scalp. As his mother and my grandmother pulled us away to do funerals for our loved ones, I remember feeling that the comfort was no longer the same. How the comfort of family had been poisoned by the depths of need for a single person! Behind those tears, my eyes and his were set on each other despite everything else. How many times did we sneak out into the woods, intent on laying with one another, before kisses became quiet embraces and warm naps. For this, my only regret is that I came to use him as a crutch. I grieved and wept as he stoically comforted me, and he so often saw no room to share his own grief. If I had been wiser, I would have understood myself better and been my best from the beginning. But here I reveal a truth of my life. I do not, in my heart of hearts, feel I have any worship left to give Seluna. I am a wellspring of blind exaltation, which bubbles up only in the face of the object of my worship: Nico. I was always going to cling to him, wherever he was. But his roots went deeper than mine, and I always wonder if it is my fault, in the end, that he never got to say goodbye to his mother. I needed to leave our hometown. He always told me he did too. Sages, we said we’d become, and we’d move his mother into a better house up in the capital, where we’d be passionate academics. I see how the academies denied me. I always have known why. I know the magic of water well, but who in Lunaris cannot do water magic? Nico, my dear Nico, though he would contest me, is the true gem that went unpolished. He could weave and weave illusions. He showed me so often what his mind had conjured, intent on every detail. If only I had known that his art was fleeting and would escape me so soon, I would have cherished every second of it. But I was too busy gazing into his eyes, drinking the passion as he spoke of the challenges of light and perspective, of colour and darkness. And yet, this light was snuffed, and so we were in the capital together, newly married and without prospects. Maybe we should have returned home. But what was there to return to? The blight slowly crept across the land. Any day, home could have been gone forever. So we fashioned new dreams. Dreams of hospitality, of community, of building family that we had always known so little of. Cooking is a way I’ve always tried to connect to my ancestors with. The flavours whisper memories into your ear if you only listen. We wanted to share our love, to find warmth in those we could. Lunaris has always been the more sickly of the two kingdoms. A warm soup to nurse aching hearts and heat frozen bones is a greater blessing than most, if you ask me. From great academics to simple cooks, we pulled our dreams closer to our station and chased them just as eagerly as we always had. Sharing a dream, sharing a purpose, all of that is something that, when mixed with love, is the most powerful elixir of them all. Oh how I loved to drink it! I worked as a maid, first for a local magistrate, then for an advisor to the King, and then in the palace itself. When my fingers ached, cramped, and bled from scrubbing boiling water into grime, I could only close my eyes and drink that potion of dreams like I had never sipped on anything before. I could see it all so vividly. We would lay exhausted in our little bed, in our cramped little room, and we would whisper about our future while embraced so tightly that the winds of winter could never have broken us apart. In a different life, maybe I’d have the clarity to look back and see how the ugly purple bruises on my knees, my aching back, and my throbbing fingers were all signs of the hardest days of my life yet. But for me, I would go back to it without a doubt in my mind. I sit awake at night, remembering those days, for even if I just felt Nico’s lips on mine once in the morning and once before we went to sleep, covered in dried sweat and the stink of a day too hard to wash away, it was always a good day all the same. What I would sacrifice if only to know his lips pressed to mine again, I could never write in my right mind. Love is madness. I hate being sane. So let me tell you about my terrible return to sanity, now. One part of our dream was always to convince Nico’s mother to move in with us. She had stayed in her little cottage, a ways out of town, since we’d left for the capital. But even on that little hill, the blight was encroaching. When the sun finally left for good, we were able to convince her to come. We had scrimped and saved and could get a whole second room! She would take the bedroom, and we would take the floor of the main room. And from our little shack, we’d work harder than ever as she looked for some work to keep herself busy. Maybe one day, if Nico felt he was ready, we could have had children. A large family, smiling together through the hard times and good times all the same, sharing love and kindness with one another, passing on stories and sharing food—I wanted all of this so badly. But Nico was right. We needed to find our security first. So we stayed careful, avoided surprises, and saw the apothecary to be certain about it. And yet, what I wouldn’t give to selfishly have a piece of him to hug called a child. I will never know what kind of mother I’d be, though. I couldn’t bear to know any child but one shared with my beloved. We set out to help Virginia move. Little did I know that I would fall asleep in Nico’s arms for the very last time, that first night we spent camped by the side of the road. The blight had moved in on us in the night. I awoke. He didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to move for a day. I just stayed in his arms. I needed so badly for it to all just be the cruelest dream I’d ever dreamt. But I’ve never woken up. My heart was breathless. And if I could only have endured a thousand years of lashings in order to have another day with him, I would accept immediately. I cannot begin to describe how horrible a cold, dead hug is. My soul floats behind me when I walk, ripped out by the thorns of the death of love. Whenever I close my eyes, I still see him. I never want to see anything else.’ [ink splotches render a section illegible, if anything was indeed written there at all] ‘Love is like a poison. It’s the sweetest poison you’ll ever taste. You’ll want nothing else but more of it. I would drink it and bleed from my guts until the end of time if I was only allowed to. When you close your eyes, you enjoy the sweetest of dreams. And one day, you will open your eyes, and the love is gone, replaced with an empty bedside. I want to go back to being blind and deaf. I want to drown. I want to burn in it. I wish that Nico’s corpse reached back for me and strangled me so that I could have joined him. I wish he would have killed me and ripped my entrails from my body in the woods, as a skeleton animated by loving hatred. If I could only snap my wrist off and animate my hand into writing every gruesome exaltation for what I would rather to this soul-snapping shattered illusion of reality without my beloved, I would rip my own hand off and command her to do it. I would grow a new one and do it all again. I would gouge out my eyes if I knew they would not grow back, so that the remaining blackness could be filled only with visions of he who I have lost. I will go to my grave gripping this cruelly sweet, thorn-coated rose of adoration. I will blaspheme in his name to the foul gods who allowed him to be taken from my arms. I make love to the dead with the passion of the living, for my heart screams that he must only live or bring me into death with him If it were not that I had to do him the final act of seeing his funeral done, I would have set myself on fire that very vile morning. I wish I did. But I can’t. I can’t leave my love’s deeds undone. I can’t leave our dreams undone. I can’t march into death and face him if his mother is not cared for until I am ripped from this world like he was. I want so badly just to see him again. I want his touch again. It hurts just to remember the faintest shadow of his kiss, of his fingers grazing my cheek, of his eyes feeling my body. And I want it to hurt more. I want to feel it even more. Every burning moment of painful love reminds me why I am here. Our deed must be done, so we can love as beasts in the land of the dead with clear consciences. So I did something I had never before wanted to do. I volunteered to go to Dawnhaven and be the maid and a cook for the Princess, insisting only that half of my wage-and-a-half be left to dear Virginia, who granted me the only kindness any world has ever given me: my love. I will rip my fingers off to clean the grates in the floor. I will bleed, sob, and wheeze as long as I can, so that the burning love can consume all that I have to give it. I will build our home when all is done. I will make it all perfect, just as we dreamt. I will die there and give it to someone who understands, some other pairing who drinks the poison of love so greedily as I do and always will. This is my vow. This is my oath. I will be the maid of all, cleaning the cruelness of the world and sweeping together the shattered dreams of a bitter perfection that I will not taste until the grave. I will fill my food with the salt of tears and the poison of love and devotion, until my death leaves hunger to return. I will never again give anything less than the total devotion that I NEED in order to stab my love through to the other side of the veil and pierce my beloved’s heart once more, so his blood and mine can marry again. Let all who oppose the innately divine calling of love be pierced and flain into the beautiful marital bed upon which the immaculate monsters of adoration lay. They know not how it is a mercy next to the all-consuming awe of the poison. One day I will die, and you will read what I write in horror. It is horror, for my love is horrible in how it hurts like lightning to be so full to bursting and unable to ever again find a rod to strike. I love you Nico. I love you so much that I hate all life that there ever has been and will be. Let my last breaths be broken, bloody whisperings of my love.’ B L I G H T - B O R N Ramona, more so than most, has fought viciously against the tide of her transformation. Locked in a continuous struggle with her own body, it is hard to say what a fully-transformed Ramona would ultimately look like. For her wrestling with the forces of change, Ramona remains largely human in appearance. The cerulean glow of her eyes is smothered by a thick mourning veil, while she keeps her hair blacker even than it was before her transformation with the routine application of soot to stain it black. Ramona has always been tight-lipped, even for a maid, but her transformation has pushed her even further in this respect. Her voice sounds gravelly, raspy, almost as if she is hovering on the brink of the cold, its cadence further exacerbated by how she opens her mouth as little as possible when speaking, in order to hide how her teeth—all of them—have transformed and multiplied from human teeth to densely packed conical teeth. Even in her free time, Ramona is generally entirely clothed from the neck down, in addition to her veil. By ensuring as little of her skin as possible is shown, Ramona disguises another unavoidable feature of herself: her pallid skin. Ramona appears ever-slick with sweat, even in the coldest of temperatures. Like the skin of an amphibian, her skin is perfectly smooth, incredibly soft, and must remain moist. For this reason, Ramona refuses even to sleep without several layers of clothing, and wears a hair cover to bed, lest she leave a mark on the fabric pillow. Ramona shakes herself awake numerous times during the night, tossing and turning to ensure her pillow is flipped and its sides never become too damp so as to suggest anything other than what a cold-sweat from stress—her last ditch excuse—might produce. And in these wee hours of the night, Ramona faithfully slips out to relieve herself, though her time is spent on other things than mere biology as well. Several times each week, she runs her With a bit of steaming-hot water and her very own pocket knife, Ramona brings her blade right in front of each ear, severing and cauterizing tiny mole-sized stubs, as if it were simply a normal routine. Then, reaching behind herself, she finds another nub, right at the base of her tailbone, and severs it, cauterizing that wound too. Finally, she takes her knife to her hands, to cut back the webbing that has begun to form between her fingers. After wrapping her hands in freshly-washed bandages, she returns to bed, as if nothing had happened, destroying the evidence by eating the removed parts of herself as she walks back. Without fail, Ramona undertakes this gruesome endeavour to ensure her struggle against being discovered for what she has become is not made all the more difficult. Type: “Classical” Abilities: Ramona has seen a similar increase in strength to other blightborn, and a lesser, although still notable, increase in speed. To her unending frustration, Ramona has a truly formidable regeneration factor, not unlike those of some salamanders. Although she regularly cuts away her transforming flesh, it faithfully regenerates as if it were growing for the first time. When Ramona was first cutting away her webbing, she sliced off one of her pinkies. Within a month, it was regrown and indistinguishable from the lost digit. Similarly, her amphibian-like skin, even without gills, allows her to passively breathe without inhaling or exhaling, both on land and in water. When she sleeps, Ramona can sometimes fail entirely to breathe for extended periods of time, with no ill-effects. As a creature so devoted to water, and one bearing some resemblance to the salamander, Ramona may be seen on occasion to steam from her nostrils, like a dragon’s nostrils might smoke, for she can spit boiling water and steam as a dragon does fire and smoke. Finally, she has found an ability to sense movement with uncanny ability. Although her ability to do so varies by the material she’s standing on, Ramona can often feel people’s steps even through her shoes, able to sense the intensity of the step and around where it’s coming from, especially if she knows the people well. Weaknesses: Owing to her skin and regeneration abilities, Ramona runs warm and has a lesser cold-tolerance to most blightborn. She is extremely vulnerable to dehydration, requiring a great deal to drink over the course of a day. In fact, it is her thirst which wakes her up for her relief most nights, rather than her bladder. Beyond this, Ramona’s transformation has made her appear allergy-prone, being rather intolerant of pollutants in the air and water, which makes wearing cloth over her mouth while sweeping all the more necessary lest she worry people for appearing sicker than she already can often come off as. For her continued use of soot to keep her hair black, Ramona often finds herself itchy and uncomfortable even before beginning her day’s work.

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Calling All Heroes and Villains!

Had my eye on this since it first opened, and since it looks like there's more heroes than villains, I think my idea will work splendidly! But before I write any specifics, are there any specific tonal or rating boundaries? I don't want to accidentally end up with something too out of left field to work coherently!

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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The Eye of the Beholder

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Nesna nodded and then chuckled as Sya went on about tea. This strange thing, if nothing else, had a certain charm about her that made it readily apparent why she was the one, out of everyone around, to have assumed proprietorship of the only tavern and inn in the entire village. How queer it was, that force of
personality could indeed overcome even as intense as hers. Maybe it wasn’t raw charisma driving this operation per se, but, presuming it wasn’t some odd blightborn power manifesting from this serpentine cyclops, there was definitely an appeal about this woman if for no other reason than how enthusiastically earnest she came off as. How could any but the most coldhearted of men rebuke such a genuine approach?

Nesna nodded idly as Sya elaborated further on her ongoing egg metaphor. She was overcome by imagination, just for a moment, before dragging herself back into practicality.

“I wish I could offer you some condolences for the state of your friends, but I am unfortunately not familiar,” she conceded, “But I can offer you this. I had always loved a good tea, most of all in the afternoon. I’ll make every arrangement to get us whatever tea might be best, and I’ll show you how to drink it. I grant you, I cannot eat solid food either. But if your condition is anything like mine, I can suggest we still might enjoy the taste of teatime refreshments. Why don’t we have two teatimes in the future? The first, just you and I, and we can keep spittoons by our sides to spit out the little treats after we’ve enjoyed them and played pretend that we can still eat like normal people. Then, I would be happy to help you make arrangements for a memorable tea for those friends of yours.”

Nesna smiled brightly and clasped her hands together.

“My dear Sya, I suggest this because teatime is a time for civilization and decency, for friendly conversation and camaraderie between good folk. It has been long—far, far too long since I’ve had the privilege of organizing a tea. We’ll have them in good shape and good spirits in no time.”

Nesna took Sya’s hand gingerly and gave it a small shake.

“Yes, yes, all feels better after a good tea, I assure you. Most of all when the tea is had with one’s friends! Oh, yes, if you only point me in the direction of a merchant, I’ll see to it that we have a sampling ready for the earliest opportunity! Darling, we’ll have a grand old time soon enough!”

For the first time, Nesna’s smile appeared genuine, rather than simply a pasted-on polite gesture. Nesna’s head bobbed slightly from side to side as she quickly put together an arrangement in her head, optimistic that there might be some array of choices as long as at least one of the royals had a taste for a good tea.

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Realms of Sun & Shadow

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The Eye of the Beholder

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The one-eyed innkeeper's accent was difficult to discern, probably from some far-off corner of the world, no doubt. Nesna’s expression remained even and subtle throughout, with her lips curled into a quiet, tight-lipped frown, while her pupil-less eyes offered little indication of where she was looking or what she was thinking other than how her eyelids sat half-open, offering the overall impression that she was first and foremost listening carefully, though nonetheless at least a bit sympathetic.

A new business venture met with such an inauspicious opening day was certainly an unfortunate sight. But if nothing else, all the bad news of the day had seemingly not dissuaded the place from enjoying a healthy patronage. It made sense, really. Between the tensions, the grim state of the world, and the latest news, people would be needing something to soothe themselves. And as far as Nesna could tell, this was the only tavern in town—which surely meant Sya had a healthy and inexhaustible source of clientele. But as Nesna struggled through all the egg puns, it seemed clearer and clearer to her that what Sya was really upset about wasn’t any of the bad news, but rather that the joy she was so clinging to needed to be shared, and far fewer people than she’d hoped had been willing to share in it.

A blightborn sharing joy. What a thought.

Now tea? That was a real idea—the best one since a bath. And hopefully, one that would go better than the bath. Nesna cracked a small smile at Sya’s suggestion of sharing tea amongst friends. Friend was a funny word, but it definitely had a certain appeal. It felt odd to have such an idea thrown around so readily—after all, did true friendship not first demand weeping or bleeding together? Well, if Sya’s egg-talk was anything to go by, being transformed by the blight was something comparable enough, anyway.

“Tea…tea…tea,” Nesna repeated thoughtfully, as that small smile overtook her stoic frown, “A wonderful idea if ever there was one. I’ve missed teatime dearly.”

Nesna brought her hand to her cheek with a soft smile, as if trying to remember the last time she’d had tea.

“I suppose…damaged eggs should stick together, shouldn’t we? A damaged egg is a much nicer way of putting it than what I’d always imagined…

You know, I hadn’t had any particular notion as to what I’d find here. I…had…only imagined that this might be some…blighted leper colony, headed by doomed men.”

Nesna shrugged as she leaned forward and picked up her cup again, swirling the wine around as she spoke. She made renewed eye contact with Sya, gazing into her eye with a more active intensity than she had before.

“But never had I imagined that I’d see warmth in equal measure. I’ll accept your offer of friendship, Sya. I’m pleased to properly make your acquaintance. Now if I may be so forward, may we speak further on this matter of tea? What sorts make their way out here?”

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