You can also find the titular couple of Pride & Justice in Kinktober2023 and on Tumblr.

from Pride & Justice by Annika Sage Ellis

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally posted to Ko-Fi for my Typewriter tier in 2023. I’m bringing it into the world for free now. Note that some things mentioned here may have changed or been reworked since I posted it. When deemed necessary, editor’s notes like this one will appear.

Those of you who have followed me from the beginning of my fanfiction career will know that I’ve always loved writing Alternate Universe or “AU” fics. Taking characters we all know and love and plopping them into completely different settings and scenarios has always been more fulfilling to me as a writer than sticking within the confines of canon. That’s why something like the AU-gust 2022 Challenge was so much fun for me to do—it’s already something I’m familiar with and enjoy.

However, the big downside of AUs is that it’s much easier to lose focus of the characters the story is supposed to be about and end up writing original characters that happen to look the same. I’m plenty guilty of this. Though I always appreciate my readers telling me how strong my characterizations are, when it came to Pride & Justice, the fic I wrote for Day 9 of AU-gust ’22, I really felt myself deviating. The piece was short, written in a single day, and within the constraints of the Angels & Demons prompt, so it didn’t bother me too much. What did end up bothering me was how much the idea stuck in my head, shouting for my attention weeks after I’d written and posted it. When concepts linger around for that long, I know I can’t just abandon them to rot.

The thing is, I knew right away I didn’t want to make it a full-fledged multi-chapter fanfiction. To quote my own AO3 author’s note, the characters I wrote were “OCs in blorbo meatsuits.” Trying to turn something like this into a fanfiction would feel disingenuous—it’s not what my fanfiction audience is here to see, and it’s not fair to my creative drive that clearly wanted to write something original, but would be constrained by the flimsy barrier of fandom that I forced it to uphold. Really, I don’t think it would have held up as a fanfiction. I decided to take a different route, and begin the process of turning it into an original idea for a novel.

A lot of people disparage fanfiction writers turning their ideas into original works, and I think the reasons for outcry are often misguided. Yes, “filing the serial numbers off,” the most common method for publishing a fanfiction as an original work, consists of doing very little outside of changing the names of the characters and some light editing to make sure the plot stays the same. Yes, fanfiction and genre writing are different mediums with different rules. While fanfiction can be structured the exact same way as an original manuscript, it’s very rare. But fanfiction is a genuine artform, a medium for telling a story. Just as a book can be adapted for screen, or a movie can be adapted for the stage, a fanfiction can be adapted for an original work. You just have to treat it like what it is: an adaptation.

I thought I would document my process here, give you a behind-the-scenes tour, of how I’m turning Pride & Justice: the fanfiction into Pride & Justice: the novel. You may have already seen hints of this on my Tumblr, but I’m going to go much deeper than moodboards and backstories here.

The first thing I decided needed a rework was, no surprise, the protagonist. Pride would need to change significantly, and not just for the obvious reasons. I needed to have a different visual for him so I could more easily create a separate personality and motivation from scratch, instead of constantly associating him with his alternate fanfiction self. I can’t draw, so I went onto this Picrew and threw together an initial appearance I could work off of.

I wanted to keep some of the punk elements like piercings and alternative dress, both as a kind of homage and to put a big neon sign over his head that reads HAS PROBLEMS WITH AUTHORITY. Same thing with the eyeliner—explicitly not conforming to gender norms, both signaling a problem with authority and implied queerness, which is intentional. The goatee was for fun, since “haha goats and Satan,” but I liked it so much I kept it. I did decide to make him white, instead of Japanese like his fanfiction counterpart, which is a change I did make with a purpose (I’ll get into it). The horns and tail being the classic cartoon devil were the only options available. It wasn’t the look I was going for with the story, but I added them anyway because they were cute.

One big deviation I decided on right away was that this isn’t going to be a stolen body, for Pride or Justice. Their appearances are what they look like, all the time, and Pride will ferry the soul for his contract without hijacking their appearance. I actually changed the way the whole contract thing works, too, but that’s a story for another post.

From here, I began brainstorming his personality. The fanfiction Pride & Justice was very short, so there wasn’t a whole lot of room for character development or action. In fact, Pride has a static character arc through the whole story. The only thing that changes by the end is him admitting that he’s scared to go back to Hell, and the rest of his personality remains exactly the same. That isn’t going to fly as an original character in a longer story.

In this new story, Pride as a character needs to be a shithead, for lack of better description. Not only is he a demon, he’s the embodiment of hubris, self-importance, and the root of all sin. He needs to be loud, obnoxious, arrogant, and outraged, if not violent, when he doesn’t get his way. Paradoxically, he also desperately needs people to like him. It’s well-documented that people with healthy relationships with their pride don’t do the grandiose “look at me, I’m so special” thing—their pride is self-evident, and exudes naturally. The people who do act incredibly shitty like this are compensating for a low self-esteem, declaring that they’re the best, that everything they do is the best, and that everyone should like them for being so obviously the best. This, of course, turns potential friends and companions away, and sends them further down into their spiral.

I took a great deal of (mostly tongue-in-cheek) inspiration from a Tweet by Sarah Hagi (that I can unfortunately not find the link to): “God, give me the confidence of a mediocre white dude.” I want Pride to be a critique of that guy you know, the one who acts like he’s the best thing since sliced bread, but isn’t really as great as he claims, and deep down he knows it. He hurts people to boost himself up, using his position of power over others to make himself feel more secure. Sure, he’s had pain, maybe even trauma, but he doesn’t want you to know that. It would be weak, in his mind, to admit that he has wounds so deep he can’t even look himself in the mirror.

So, as my protagonist, Pride needs to be fundamentally self-absorbed, taking pleasure in the pain of others, because he’s compensating for and masking a very deep emotional pain. I don’t want to be so black-and-white as to make the entire concept of “having pride” a strict evil, so over the course of the story I want to develop him into a healthier version of it. This would give him a very fulfilling arc—he begins the story as the negative expression of pride, hubris and self-importance and viciousness, and ends on the positive end of the spectrum, with genuine self-respect and confidence without needing to harm others. That’s a whole dang character with flaws and potential for growth if I do say so myself!

Obviously, I wasn’t quite done. Pride needed a pain to endure, something that would turn him into the vindictive little asshole we see before us. What better pain for a demon to have, what better way to turn them bitter against all of humanity and virtue, than to be cast out of Heaven by God for questioning His authority? Not only is Pride a demon, he’s one of the fallen angels who rebelled with Lucifer when he fell from Heaven.

My wonderful girlfriend, AuroBlaze, helped me solidify Pride’s appearance so I wouldn’t have to use the Picrew forever. The idea of him having the blond roots of his hair exposed was played as a joke, at first, because how funny would it be for him to always look like he had a shitty hair-dye job? But while we were talking, I realized it could be a brilliant metaphor for the very shoddy mask he wears to hide his aforementioned bitterness and trauma—especially if those exposed roots are the color his hair used to be as an angel, that won’t stay covered up, no matter how hard he tries.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The blond roots are still the color his hair was as an angel, but the reason they stick around is because it's essentially a magical scar. His dark hair stops right where it meets his horns, his broken halo. His former-holiness is burned into him, and can't be transformed or dyed away.

While we were discussing what I actually wanted his horns to look like, I solved a few world-building birds with one stone. The demons in this story, instead of just being goth angels, have their wings cut off by the other angels when they fall. Their halos are cracked in two, jammed into their heads, and become their horns, eternally smoking with once-holy fire. They grow tails from the trails of fire they leave as they fall to Hell, like the trail of a comet. They have several permanent reminders of the grace they lost.

Lo and behold, we have our final design:

[Tumblr version] [Instagram version]

Welcome to the world, Pride! You are a menace to society and will cause so much distress to everyone around you.

A few other details that I want to mention before we go: All demons have a secondary beast form they can transform into, either fully or partially (i.e. Pride can summon one monster arm if he wants). Compare this to angels having a human form and a “flaming wheel of eyes and fire” form. His horns and tail are also optional in this way—he can hide them from humans entirely if he wants. I won’t get deep into his powers or how this story’s version of magic works, but there’s a good chance I’ll make a separate post about it later.

EDITOR’S NOTE: You can see his beast form here, also drawn by AuroBlaze!

Also, for those of you waiting with bated breath for this: Pride will be explicitly bisexual in this book. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to bring it up yet, but I am very excited to populate this story with a lot of queer and trans characters, so it’ll be a topic at some point for sure.

On that note, there’s an internal war waging within me about whether or not I should make Pride trans. I’ve been on the fence about it for a while. Since he’s a multi-dimensional immortal creature who chose every detail of his body to his exact specifications, he wouldn’t need top surgery, hormones, or anything like that. It would just be the lower half that’s the contested zone. Normally, that wouldn’t be a big deal, but this story is a romance and there will be sex in it. So it’s unusually pressing!

The arguments against? I don’t want to perpetuate any harmful assumptions by making a trans character literally on the side of the devil. I already have more than a few trans side characters in the story, but I still don’t want to make any unfortunate comparisons in today’s landscape. There’s the whole “indoctrination” thing, tempting others to sin is a big part of his personal magic arsenal, don’t need to make too many jumps to get disingenuous there. There’s also the matter of my intended commentary—the “mediocre white man” stuff. While being trans wouldn’t make him less of a man, obviously, the kind of behavior I’m trying to critique is seen most often in cis white men. They use toxic masculinity as a shield because they’ve been told all their lives they aren’t allowed to show “weakness” in the form of emotional vulnerability, and hurting others is how they feel strong—like a “real man”—in the face of their pain. I don’t want to mess with the foundations of that critique, risk muddying it, or accidentally send a completely different message than I intended with such a delicate subject.

The arguments for are more self-indulgent. I am a huge fan of adding things to a story just because you like them, and something about Pride screams TRANS! at me. Trans men aren’t seen often in media, especially trans men who are visibly, vocally, and proudly gender non-conforming, and that representation is personally important to me. Also, trans men who don’t feel the need to get surgery are plenty scarce in the media landscape, which is again important to me personally. Beyond my personal investment, the metaphors I could play with regarding transness and fallen angels, and how toxic American Evangelical Christianity is to queer identities would tie in with a lot of other themes in the book. For any other story, that alone would be enough for me to shrug and make the change, but still I hesitate. Thoughts? Feelings? Advice? I’d love to hear it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the time since I wrote this post, I did decide to make Pride canonically a trans man. Once I started viewing him as trans, I couldn’t un-see it, and it became an inextricable part of him as a character. I do plan on tying in all of the above-mentioned metaphors into his character, and more. One of Pride’s arcs in the book is about his self-discovery—about becoming someone he actually wants to be, not tied down to anyone’s opinion of him, and growing into a person who doesn’t need to identify himself with his past trauma. It moves him so powerfully, he genuinely wants to be a human by the end of the book, something he once reviled because of how they stole God’s love from him. I think the growth, metaphor, and representation all come together to be more important than the “mediocre white man” thing, or any possible bad-faith readings of a trans character (which the inevitable dipshits will do no matter what).

WHEW, this one was a doozy. I guess I was really excited to introduce this story officially! Thanks for reading this ramble all the way to the end. And as always, thank you for your continued support!

See you next time for more Behind The Scenes action!

— Annika

from Pride & Justice by Annika Sage Ellis

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally posted to Ko-Fi for my Typewriter tier in 2023. I’m bringing it into the world for free now. Note that some things mentioned here may have changed or been reworked since I posted it. When deemed necessary, editor’s notes like this one will appear.

There can be no evil without good, no Hell without Heaven, and no demon without an angel. Last time, I took you through my process of developing Pride’s new appearance and personality. Today, we’re going to do the same with Justice.

I won’t rehash everything I said in that post, but the long story short is I need to make original-Justice a distinct entity, in both appearance and personality, from fanfiction-Justice in order for the rest of the story to work. I’ll be documenting the process I went through to get from Point A to Point B, taking you through my thought process as a creative and discussing the changes I made.

First thing’s first: Justice needed a new look. Like with Pride, my priority was giving him a brand-new appearance before I started brainstorming his personality, so it would be easier for my brain to separate one version from another in my head and develop this Justice independently. I used the same Picrew that I used to design Pride to design Justice—on the same night!

In hindsight, I don’t think the outfit I chose completely fits his personality. I hadn’t come up with his personal style, so I’ll cut my past self some slack and pretend they’re his church clothes.

The first thing that’s obviously different is that I’ve made this Justice Black instead of Egyptian, which is a choice I made deliberately (I’ll get into it). I gave him long dreadlocks because they require a lot of maintenance and care, which is already a good indicator that he’s neat and dedicates himself. I also wanted to compare and contrast him with Pride as much as possible—they both keep their hair half-up, for example, but Justice has a neat bun and Pride has a messy ponytail. I gave him freckles on a whim, but since Heaven is in the sky, close to the sun and God, it makes for a cool “kissed by the sun/touched by God” symbol. The tiny wings and halo were the only angelic details available, and not at all what I had in mind, but they’re cute, so I included them. The apple was a little bit of wink-nudge for his role in the story—the Forbidden Fruit, disobeying God—since he abandons Heaven to help a demon escape his death sentence.

So, addressing that switch in ethnicity. Pride & Justice is going to take place in America, because I’m American and I know how to write it better, and will include explicit criticism of American Evangelical Christianity, among other things. However, I do want to make sure I’m not childishly positing that all religion is inherently bad, on purpose or on accident. Not all religions are Christianity, and a lot of Christians in America are not Evangelical, and demographically speaking, Black Americans are one of the most devout populations in the country. It would be extremely disingenuous of me not to include them in this conversation I’m having about the ways the (majority white) Evangelicals cause harm, because while their most obvious target these days is queer and trans people, it’s well known that they harm many people of color with their rhetoric too. I knew from the beginning I wanted to address this, and Justice is how I’m going to do that.

I chose him because there aren’t enough Black angels in media, and far, far too many Black demons—the reasons I’m not continuing that trend are, I hope, obvious. Justice deliberately leaves Heaven at the beginning of the story because of the harm it’s causing to innocent people (unjustly, one might say), but he remains devout from start to finish, finding his own path and using his faith to try and make things better. It’s going to be character building for him, and it’s going to be me gesturing to the fact that Evangelicals are choosing to act the way they do, and you can make different choices that don’t harm people. And finally, while a lot of queer people have divested from religion for plenty of very good reasons, not all of them do. There are plenty of religious queer people, and that reality is very often ignored or treated as strange—or worse, a betrayal. It’s not something that should be dismissed, especially because it harms a lot of already vulnerable people, closing them off from a community that’s supposed to be there for them.

Justice won’t be the only character who represents this position, of course. On Earth, he attends a Black church, and there will be multiple side characters in the form of his friends (including an overlap with Pride’s friends), regular church-goers, people he volunteers with, things like that. This means I will be doing a lot of research about historically Black churches, the people who attend them, and the communities they build. And hiring a sensitivity reader, but that won’t happen until I have a manuscript.

Onto some other details! I decided not to go with the traditional floating donut-shaped halo. Instead, a halo is a ring of light always shining behind the angel’s head—no matter which way they turn, it’s like a bright spotlight is hitting them from the other side, eternally glowing. I also love wings, so massive wings are also a required factor. I’ve thrown around the idea of making each angel have different shaped wings based on their role. So, for example, Justice is part of Heaven’s army, defending the Kingdom of God. His wings would be elliptical, the best shape for control and maneuverability, so he can fight in the air.

Like I mentioned in Pride’s post, this body belongs to Justice and Justice alone. Unlike the fanfiction, this version of the story gives them their own bodies that they always look like. It makes more sense for the rest of the story, and saves me the headache of having to come up with a reason why he’d even need to do that in the first place.

Next, his personality. I’m going to come right out and say I don’t think my depiction of fanfiction-Justice was in the best taste. While I was taking inspiration from the canon arc of Atem in Yu-Gi-Oh! where he develops a less vindictive sense of justice and learns compassion, I also recognize that making a Middle Eastern man be angry, violent, and be super ready to kill in the name of God is not a good depiction at all, and I should have been able to recognize that while I was writing it. So that’s totally on me.

Because of that mistake, I’m being extremely conscious about how I characterize Justice in the rework, considering that Black men have similarly dangerous stereotypes regarding violence, anger, and aggression. Not to mention that if I kept him exactly the same, I would be writing a white character explaining to a Black character why he shouldn’t be violent. That definitely falls into White Savior bullshit, as well as a lot of worse racism, so that needed to change right away.

The first thing I considered when making this change was what Justice’s role in Heaven would actually be. He’s the embodiment of God’s justice, the things that God has determined is right and wrong, what people deserve and what they don’t. He’s basically a holy lawyer, knowing all the ins and outs of what is worth forgiving and what isn’t. Justice has a very strong moral code—he was created for it—but is ultimately very kind. Love thy neighbor is one of God’s most absolute laws, after all, so it would only be just to love often and unconditionally. He’s quick to offer aid and forgiveness, above and beyond what’s required of him.

When it comes to the punishment aspect of his job, Justice only moves to enact it if it falls under the rules God has set out. This is also a point of tension for him. Justice seems to be the only angel in all of Heaven who thinks killing Pride would be unreasonably cruel—he’s a demon, but he’s ferrying one of God’s children, one that belongs in Heaven. Despite his protests that smiting Pride would be unjust, even if he’s a demon, nobody else cares.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I know I said that the soul Pride has with him is “supposed” to be in Heaven, but I’m changing it to be a little more ambiguous—with a reason! Justice will defend this soul that may not belong in Heaven, he would defend even the worst of humanity, because the right to a just life doesn’t discriminate on whether you’re a good or bad person. This is another reason he doesn’t get along with a ton of angels, which I’ll get into right now.

In that way, Justice is the odd one out among his angelic brethren. He follows his moral code—God’s moral code, that he was created to serve—almost too well, against the interests of the structure of Heaven as an institution. The other angels are happy to follow along, turn a blind eye to the way they might be hurting innocent people by mistake, but Justice isn’t. A lot of his superiors dislike him for that, and he’s had plenty of arguments with them about his ideas. Fortunately for Justice, he loves a good, healthy debate, and arguing his point in good faith is like a fun puzzle. Ironically, his opponents are hardly ever arguing in good faith.

Because Justice is basically purpose-built to serve God and follow the rules, he’s very paranoid about being perfect. Following God’s commands to the letter is all he knows, and retribution from Heaven is swift if he ever steps out of line. For centuries, he hasn’t been allowed to make a mistake, so when he gets to Earth after breaking a ton of those Heavenly rules… he has a bit of a crisis!

This is where his main character arc comes in. The ingrained dogma Justice was trained under, to follow the word of God to the letter with no exceptions, is at odds with his purpose of deciding what’s right and wrong. Through the course of the story, he develops his own sense of justice, still based on God’s word, but with the caveat that he will do what’s right and just before what’s ”correct.”

My wonderful girlfriend, AuroBlaze, helped me once again to solidify Justice’s final character design. While not shown here, another silly idea got added to his design. I’m taking inspiration from Good Omens for this story (you should read it if you haven’t), and I wanted to give a little nod to Aziraphale’s bookshop by having Justice attend a book club semi-regularly throughout the story. As a joke, I mentioned Justice would probably think humans with reading glasses were so cute that he’d get some for himself—even though his vision is perfect, and he’d have no reason to ever need glasses. I made it canon because not only is it adorable and hilarious, it also demonstrates Justice’s genuine love for humanity. He adores God’s children and wants to do right by them—which is why leaving Heaven was so hard. He thought Heaven was doing right by humanity, and was faced with stunning evidence to the contrary.

Now, the face reveal:

[Tumblr version] [Instagram version]

Welcome to the world, Justice! You’re such a sweetheart, I promise that sharing your existence with Pride won’t be exhausting forever.

Here are a few more fun facts I want to mention before the end of this post: Justice, like Pride, can choose to show or hide his wings, but his halo is on forever. It glows by absorbing nearby light, so it’s automatically dim in the dark because there’s no light for it to use. He also has his flaming wheel of fire and eyes form, but he doesn’t use it very often and can’t partially transform like Pride can. What he can do is summon a holy sword whenever he wants, as well as play a really sick harp solo.

Like last time, I won’t leave his queerness merely implied—Justice is bisexual, and it will be stated in-text without room for debate. This time, though, Justice has been kind enough to let me know he’s cis! So I don’t have a second Mystery Gender situation on my hands, though I do consider Justice’s cis-ness to be as important as any other aspect of him. Having a cis Black man be unabashedly gentle and kind, while still giving him the capacity to be angry without making it his entire personality, is something I’m trying to do on purpose in this story. Men of any race have trouble being depicted as soft and sweet, and men of color especially risk any show of negative emotion branding them as dangerous or predatory, and I want to do my best not to perpetuate those harmful ideas here. There are trans Black characters in the story, because I’m definitely not leaving that gaping hole of representation missing, but creating a spectrum is my ultimate goal.

Another huge post for you all! I invite any comments about anything I’m doing here, because it requires a lot of stepping outside my comfort zone, a million hours of research, and fucking up a few dozen times before I get it right.

Thanks for your support, and see you next time for more Behind The Scenes action!

— Annika

from Pride & Justice by Annika Sage Ellis

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally posted to Ko-Fi for my Typewriter tier in 2023. I’m bringing it into the world for free now. Note that some things mentioned here may have changed or been reworked since I posted it. When deemed necessary, editor’s notes like this one will appear.

With the leads out of the way, it’s high time we talk about the shiny new antagonists for Pride & Justice. And yes, that’s antagonists with an “s” because there are two of them! Since the fanfiction version of the story only had the two main characters in it, both of these antagonists are completely created by me. I also don’t have design references for them yet, so feel free to imagine them in your head.

The reason I have two antagonists when I could very easily just have one is based on a few things. For one, I thought it would be fun to have representatives from both Heaven and Hell, like Pride and Justice themselves, and create a neat mirror effect in the narrative. For another, there are multiple conflicts in the story—the conflict of Pride and Justice getting back to Heaven to complete the contract Pride made with that soul in Purgatory, and the conflict between Pride and Justice as they try to navigate their new lives and eventual romance. The dual-antagonists serve both conflicts, one for the over-arching plot that runs through the story, and another for the personal dynamic of their relationship, creating another wedge that they have to climb over to be together. I also wanted to take the opportunity to say that, while Heaven and Christianity deserve critiquing, just because Heaven is bad doesn’t mean that Hell is good. They’re both fundamentally flawed, for different reasons.

With all that said, let’s introduce the new players!

Honesty

I’ve always been really fascinated with the idea of a villain who believes what they’re doing is righteous and good. The kind of antagonist that is doing objectively horrible things from every perspective but their own, who can’t or won’t understand that the things they’re doing “for the greater good” aren’t doing any good at all. That’s the kind of person that Honesty is.

Honesty is, like Justice, an angel that embodies the virtue of her namesake. She is physically incapable of telling a lie, and follows the word of God to a tee. After all, God’s word is the truth of the world. She knows her place—it is to serve Heaven and fight against Hell at any cost. Every angel in Heaven knows their place too, and deviating from it is a non-issue. If you aren’t serving God, specifically if you aren’t carrying out His word to the letter, you aren’t doing your duty as an angel. You deserve retribution and punishment for it. You deserve to be sent to Hell for it. After all, that is God’s word. You can’t refute that because she can never lie.

In her own mind, all she’s doing is keeping things the way they should be. Angels are taught, created for, and trusted to serve God’s will for the good of His children and the world at large. Pride is a speck to her, a lost cause she won’t even bother sympathizing with. He’s already lost. What really makes her mad, what sends her on the crusade that leads to the entire story, is Justice defending him. He’s breaking the laws he promised to serve, defying God for a demon, of all things. She places herself at the head of the mission to bring Justice back under the banner of Heaven, send Pride to his death like he deserves, or bring them both down.

From our perspective, she clearly sucks. Pride dying would have other far-reaching consequences beyond killing a single demon. Killing the innocent person he just happens to be carrying along with him is bad, actually, and Justice pointing that out shouldn’t immediately send him to the same fate. That doesn’t matter to her. They’ve both made themselves enemies of God by defying His word, and now they are her enemies too. And she’s right. They aren’t following the rules. Pride for obvious reasons—he doesn’t care about God’s rules—but Justice really has no excuse here. He’s an angel advocating for keeping a demon alive. No matter the reason, the ends should justify the means for him. But they don’t. He is wrong, and Honesty is going to show him what happens to angels who are wrong.

The point of Honesty being legitimate in her grievance is not to make a point about how being anti-authority and breaking the rules is always awesome (although it is), it’s to show that those rules she’s enforcing—even if she is telling the truth—are flawed. The law is unjust, and following an unjust law makes you unjust, and Justice won’t sit idly by and accept it like he’s supposed to. The problem with that is that he’s lower on the hierarchy than God. Literally everyone is. To Honesty, the law being unjust doesn’t matter. Things in life being unfair doesn’t matter. Innocent people dying—like killing a soul along with the demon ferrying it—happens sometimes in the name of the greater good. Tough shit. God said so, and it’s not your place to have an opinion about the word of God. Do as you’re told.

If you haven’t picked up on it already, Honesty is going to be the main vehicle for which I drive my criticism of American Evangelical Christianity. Evangelicalism, if you’re unfamiliar, (and I’ll be paraphrasing) is the sect of Christianity that reads the Bible literally, as if it is without fault, and is the perfect way to practice your faith—it’s called “biblical literalism.” One of their core tenants is to proselytize everywhere, to everyone, to save their souls for the second-coming, which they also fervently believe will happen. They genuinely, honestly believe they are spreading the good word—the word “evangelical” comes from the Greek word for "good news"—and saving lives. Which is also why, if you’ve noticed, that they preach to anyone regardless of interest or religion, treat any rejection of Christianity as a personal attack, and why they have worked to criminalize abortion, deny the theory of evolution, lambast same-sex marriage, and in general push traditional (read: conservative) thinking when it comes to authority and social practices. Obviously, this is a generalization of a very large sect of a very large religion, but if you’ve been paying even a little bit of attention to American politics over the years, this specific type of Evangelical Christian is going to sound familiar. It’s what I aim to critique in Pride & Justice, and I have no problems stating that Honesty will embody this way of thinking.

Now, I bet some of you are wondering why I made Honesty a woman (specifically a white woman, but I don’t have a design to show you). Surely if my goal is to critique the traditionalist views of the Evangelical Christians, surely a man in a position of authority would be more accurate? While I can see that perspective, I’d argue that God is that man in a position of authority here. Honesty is—like a lot of Evangelicals in real life—simply the “innocent” white woman who uses her relative position of power to crack down on anyone she sees as deviant. People often ignore the ways women perpetuate systems of oppression like patriarchy, because women are oppressed within that system. But a lot of the reason that patriarchy persists is by women passing down patriarchal standards in their homes to their families, in classrooms, and in public places. If you want to go deeper, it’s well documented that white women will use their relative status to perpetuate racism, homophobia, and transphobia. Historically, white women have perpetuated anti-Black racism by falsely accusing Black men and boys of rape to get them arrested, beaten, or killed. For a modern example, look no further than the rise of TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists), a group that is overwhelmingly made up of white Christian women with traditionalist values fighting against their own self-interests, all in the name of perpetuating transphobia. Honesty represents a real demographic that often gets ignored in the fight against inequality.

I’m not sure I’ll portray Honesty as openly bigoted in the story (she’s not a human, angels don’t really have concepts like gender or race), but she is definitely not a fan of Pride or Justice, and finds the idea that they would ever be in a relationship as at best laughable, and at worst a manipulation. It’s against God, after all, for an angel and a demon to collaborate, much less be in love, so therefore if it’s real it must be destroyed, and if it’s false it must be revealed that it was always a fiction—and therefore destroyed. She is going to try a lot of things to try and get Justice to “see the light" once again, turn him against Pride, and follow-through with her promise to smite him like she intended to before they escaped. All of them will fail, though it will not be without a fight.

Beyond the political stuff, I’m excited to weaponize her inability to tell a lie. It’s really going to add a new flavor to the kind of story I’m able to tell with her, and I think it adds a very cool depth. How do you argue against someone who can never tell a lie? How do you show them they’re wrong, even when they’re technically right, and retroactively make their previous statements untrue? What is the truth, how do you measure it? Is the truth an innate state present in the universe because it’s always been there, or is it a matter of personal perspective?

So, that’s Honesty. Get excited to love to hate her!

Lust

[content warning for emotional abuse, mentioned sexual assault]

Our representative of Hell was genuinely a hard one for me. When I had the idea to create a second antagonist, I knew I wanted whoever it was to be a personal antagonist for Pride. He’s the one with the most emotional baggage that he needs to overcome to let himself be in a relationship with Justice, and the demon crawling out of Hell would obviously only be familiar with him, and couldn’t really have a vendetta against both of them (at least, not at first). Making it Lucifer would be a little much—why would the ruler of Hell care about one demon? I puzzled over the remaining six of the seven sins, debating which one Pride was most likely to have a personal history with, good or bad. Ultimately, I landed on Lust as the one that made the most sense, which made things harder if I’m being honest.

Personally, I despise that lust is even a part of the deadly sins at all. I think that the idea of lust—a real and valid human emotion—being something that eternally damns you is ridiculous and complete bullshit. It necessarily demonizes sex and sexuality as sinful, which has paved the way for a lot more dangerous bullshit, and shunts an entire category of human expression and connection into the Bad Person Slot. Further, I absolutely despise how lust is often portrayed in media—the one, single sexy woman in a conga line of generic looking men in business suits, and of course the one fatphobic caricature for gluttony. I knew if I was going to make Lust-the-character a significant part of my story, I was going to need to do some serious work in portraying it to make it palatable to even myself.

The first thing I did was completely erase the concept of chastity as a virtue. I’ve replaced it with the virtue of passion, something I think better reflects lust on the whole, and I didn’t have any plans to include a chastity angel in the story anyway. Next, I am going to include a plain-text, inescapable, definitive defense of sex and sexuality using the existence of an angel of passion in the story. I already planned to do a subtle exposition dump of Heaven and Hell when Justice is feeling homesick, and that would be the perfect time to bring up something like him being friends with Passion. Probably because Pride was implying that Heaven is all stuffy and no fun. Either way, full and rigorous defense of sex is going to happen, just so everyone is clear about what kind of story this is. And finally, redefining what Lust-the-character actually represents.

Lust is sex doll. The form it chose, and how it presents itself in the story, is as a life-size sex doll, with the addition of smoking horns and a tail like Pride. It does not move its mouth to talk, speaking through telepathy. It can barely move on its own, sitting limp or lying flat, moving in only the barest twitches. If you haven’t picked up on it yet, Lust uses it/its pronouns. It is quite literally a sex object, something that is purpose built for a single-minded, selfish pleasure. It doesn’t matter if Lust enjoys it or not. That’s not the point. The point is that there is this thing that is here for you, and you can do whatever you want.

That’s the kind of lust considered abhorrent and sinful in this story. The kind where you don’t care about, nor even stop to consider, what your partner(s) think. If your sex is not negotiated between all parties, if it isn’t enthusiastically consensual, if you can’t be bothered to take your partner(s) feelings, wants, desires, and pleasure into account, you’re sinning. At best, this makes you a bad sexual partner, using people as sex toys for the sole purpose of getting you off. At worst, you are a rapist.

There are other things people lust for—lust for power is an obvious one. You want to lord over others, to wield your selfishness maliciously, disregarding if and how you hurt others. Generally, though, my version of lust is not about wanting to have sex and then going directly to Hell. In fact, the idea of thoughts = sin is something I’m also getting rid of in this story, but I’ll get into it another time. My version of lust is about being consumed by single-minded desires, including sex, that push you to treat others as disposable. Lust is an object because that’s how people committing this sin view others—tools to be used, abused, and thrown away when they have what they want.

Speaking of “wanting,” what does Lust want with Pride? What is that personal history I hinted at so many paragraphs ago? Well, you may be shocked to find that it isn’t a very nice one.

Like I mentioned in his post, Pride uses his arrogance as a shield to hide the fact that he desperately needs and wants people to like him. As a byproduct of his turbulent past (being rejected by Heaven, burning alive in a river of fire, etc.), he craves the validation of others to tell him that he’s very good and special and the bestest demon guy ever. He’s insecure, put shortly, and will take anything he can get when it comes to attention and/or affection. Enter Lust, who happened upon Pride at the right time, and basically thought, “Oh boy! A body I can exploit!”

There were no real feelings on either side, so what they had wasn’t necessarily a “relationship,” but they were involved, and it was abusive. Lust picked up on the fact that Pride needed validation and decided to make sure he wouldn’t ever be able to get it from anyone else. It berated him for being clingy, insisted no one else would bother putting up with him, and generally fed into the insecurity he tries to hide by confirming it as true. Agreeing that he’s unworthy of the affection he craves so much of, and actually he’s pathetic for wanting so much of it. Ego damaged, Pride would lash out and disappear for a while, but the creeping sense of loneliness from his insecurity would always return. Convinced that Lust was the only way he would ever get attention, he returned to it again and again.

Breaking him down made Lust feel powerful—it had complete control over Pride. No matter how many times he said this was the last time, it knew he would eventually come crawling back. Whereas Pride needs affection to function, Lust needs a power trip.

Eventually, though, Pride stops showing up. This is upsetting for a while, but then rumors start flying around Hell that Pride busted out of Heaven with an angel. And now they’re… living on Earth together? Lust is outraged by this news, in no small part because if Pride never comes back to Hell, it loses a source of its own security. It might lose its hold over him altogether, and that absolutely will not stand. Throughout the story, Lust shows up to try and convince Pride to give up. That whatever he has with Justice won’t last, that Justice will eventually get bored and/or sick of him, that an angel of all things could never possibly tolerate him, much less love him. Some of the other deadly sins show up too, though less persistently, and with a lot less to lose.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m toying with the idea of Lust enlisting other demons to find Pride for it, and harass him into coming back to Hell. I didn’t have a reason for any of the other deadly sins show up, but this would give them a purpose: annoying Pride—on Lust’s behalf, probably for some sort of bribe—to make sure he doesn’t think he’s all that just because he shacked up with an angel.

Lust’s role in the story is to serve as a representation of Pride’s insecurity, and the abusive relationship he has with himself sometimes. Pride routinely denies himself the ability to be vulnerable based on his ego and believes he won’t be worthy of love if he is vulnerable. Defeating Lust is a metaphor for him overcoming not just his past abuse, but his feelings of insecurity.

In a weird way, I am excited to write Lust. It’s going to be a creepy-horror-movie-haunted-doll type of character, which is a way I don’t think people expect a “lust” character to act, so I’m interested in seeing everyone’s reactions.

Also, an important note! Lust is not going to be the only it/its pronoun user in the story, I am not unaware of how that looks. I’m still creating all the side characters, but since Justice makes a lot of friends on Earth, I am fully planning on populating the most-seen characters with at least one other it/its user.

Anyway! Those are the antagonists of the story! What do you think? I’d love any and all thoughts!

Thanks as always for your support!

— Annika

from Pride & Justice by Annika Sage Ellis

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally posted to Ko-Fi for my Typewriter tier in 2023. I’m bringing it into the world for free now. Note that some things mentioned here may have changed or been reworked since I posted it. When deemed necessary, editor’s notes like this one will appear.

In the process of turning this project from a fanfiction to an original novel, I knew the plot was going to need some work. Firstly, a short story I wrote in a day has nowhere near the amount of beef necessary to fill out an entire book, and second, it didn’t even have other characters in it besides the two leads. Clearly, things need to change.

Though I’ve been working on retooling the plot of Pride & Justice for a while, it’s definitely not anywhere close to done. I have the beginning, ending, and general plot beats I want to hit, I have character arcs, I have antagonists, but stringing them all together is the hard part. The middle is quite flabby—basically it’s just a random assortment of cool things I had ideas for, with very little connectivity. I’m nowhere near the completion of a first draft, much less an actual finished manuscript. All this to say: it’s very possible that the things I make note of in this post will change by the time the book is done. I think that’s even cooler for you all, though! You get to see a book happen from its embryo-like beginning stages all the way to a finished product. Usually only the authors get to suffer through that!

Without further ado: here is how I reworked the plot for Pride & Justice. This first chunk will be a play-by-play of how I’m changing the fanfiction parts.

The beginning starts out relatively the same as it did in the fanfiction—Pride is imprisoned in Heaven for attempting to break in through the front door. This time, instead of being dragged off to his execution in the very next scene, he’s dragged into a heavenly courtroom. Presiding over that courtroom is Honesty, and Justice is not only the guard outside his cell, but also a witness to his crime.

Pride is predictably smarmy while Justice recounts his testimony, and even when Honesty sentences him to death, can’t be bothered to do more than sarcastically ask why they didn’t bother to ask for his side of the story. She moves to dismiss that half-question, but Justice stands up and tells everyone he’s right. Without hearing the other half of the story, all they’re doing is killing Pride based on who he is—how is that virtuous? Honesty is not happy about this, but gives Pride the chance to speak anyway.

Pride reveals that he broke into Heaven because he made a deal with a soul in Purgatory who had been waiting over a hundred years to be rejudged by God, and would soon lose that chance altogether. As every multidimensional being in that room knows, souls that fade from Purgatory go straight to Hell (everyone who read Pride’s backstory on Tumblr? Yeah, he was lying). And, as the fine-print of the contract states, their souls are forever entwined until he can get them up to Heaven. So if they smite him here, they’d be killing an innocent soul too. Everyone looks to Honesty to dismiss that claim as false—but she can’t.

All of the angels in the courtroom are distraught, but Honesty concludes that Pride needs to die anyway. Justice, once again, stands up and offers a solution. If they let Pride escort the contracted soul to wherever in Heaven it’s supposed to be, end the contract, and let him leave, literally everyone benefits. Heaven saves another soul from damnation or obliteration, Pride gets his contract fulfilled, nobody dies.

Honesty shoots him down, and nobody disagrees. That soul can’t be returned to Heaven, God hasn’t judged them to be worthy of leaving Purgatory. Justice argues that letting one person in against the rules is better than killing them—on purpose, knowingly. How is murdering one of His children supposed to be in service of God? At this point, the entire courtroom is in shambles, arguing over each other, and everyone is basically split down the middle of how to handle things. Pride is watching all of this very pleased with himself and also curious about the angel that bothered to give him the benefit of the doubt.

To save them from complete disarray, Honesty adjourns the trial and declares they’ll have a second one to make the final decision. Everyone leaves, but Honesty makes sure to call Justice out. As he’s escorted out, Pride listens to her reprimand him for going against God’s word, telling him that it doesn’t matter what his personal perspective is—justice is blind, do as the Lord commands. Justice is clearly not happy about this, and Pride gets even more curious.

Back in his cell, Pride is guarded by a few other angels before Justice shows back up again. He tries to strike up a conversation about how the trial went and how “excited” he is for the next one, but Justice bluntly tells him the second trial is a lie. They’re going to smite him before he even gets in the door. He also mentions they’re doing it so quickly because Honesty is worried “someone” would help him escape. That someone is, obviously, Justice himself, and he does.

Pride and Justice hatch an escape plan to get Pride to where he needs to be, drop off his contracted soul, and leave before he can get skewered by a holy sword. In practice, things don’t go quite as planned. Caught in the middle of his escape, Pride begins gleefully mutilating his way through God’s army. In the meantime, Justice is pretending to try and catch him, none too pleased that his request that Pride not harm anyone went ignored. They have a fake-battle-to-the-death where Justice “chases” Pride off the very edge of Heaven itself, and they go plummeting to the Earth.

Once there, Justice insists that Pride, for all intents and purposes, is dead. He can’t come back to Heaven, or they’re both in trouble. Justice leaves before his angel friends can wonder where he is, and Pride stays alone on Earth. He knows he can’t go back to Hell, contract unfulfilled, not to mention the shame of needing an angel’s help to escape would make him a target for much worse than a death sentence. He stays on Earth, tempting humans to sin in his spare time—which is all of it—until he can figure out how to complete his contract. Because if he doesn’t complete it, he dies anyway.

Eventually, Justice visits him on Earth again, demanding to know what he thinks he’s doing on Earth instead of back in Hell. Pride gives plenty of sarcastic non-answers, while Justice demands he leave. This whole area radiates sin and demonic energy, and if any other angel figures out Pride is still alive, they’re both screwed. Pride continues to be an asshole. The meeting ends with Justice saying he gets one last chance.

The last chance comes around, because lo and behold, Pride hasn’t left Earth. During another argument, Pride lets slip that he has nowhere else to go. Justice, sympathetic and knowing that there’s no way he can keep his secret forever, offers to join him so they can mask their respective demonic and angelic energies. Pride takes him up on that, and they agree to hide on Earth until they can figure out a way to get Pride’s contract fulfilled without setting off every known alarm in Heaven and Hell alike.

This is where my rework of the fanfiction plot ended, and where I had to start coming up with new ideas to fill the rest of the story. I have plenty of broad-strokes ideas in the works right now, still tripping over some details that I’ll list a few of later. Here are the important plot-points though.

Heaven is looking for their not-so-dead prisoner and runaway angel, a mission lead by Honesty herself. She’s determined to wrestle Justice back to Heaven and kill Pride for real this time, but first she has to find them. With the two of them living in such close proximity, their normally easy-to-differentiate energies are nearly identical to humans. The only hints they get are when Pride and/or Justice use their respective powers, a tiny blip of abnormal activity on the angelic radar.

The same goes for the servants of Hell, though for a less concrete goal. Other demons try to appeal to Pride throughout the story, telling him to ditch Justice and team up with them instead. Lust, as we discussed in the last post, is the one that shows up the most, and it refuses to take no for an answer.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As I mentioned before, this has changed a little bit. I’m toying with the idea of Lust enlisting other demons to find Pride for it, and harass him into coming back to Hell. It would make more sense than a bunch of demons randomly wanting Pride as an ally because—reasons?

When they aren’t being harassed by agents of cosmic divinity, both Pride and Justice acclimate to their new “human” lives. Justice finds a human church to attend to reconcile with his recent struggles understanding Heaven’s shortcomings, attends a book club, volunteers, and generally tries to blend in as much as he can. Pride, on the other hand, can’t help himself from causing trouble, not having much else to do, and not interested in making any puny human friends. That is, until, he meets some human friends who can rock with his sensibilities, a tiny group of queer people who can generally tolerate him. His hobbies expand to include weed, clubbing, shoplifting things that food stamps won’t cover, and eventually even learning to paint. This doesn’t stop Pride from getting into random fights, or taking to the streets when he feels like he’s been wronged, causing sin everywhere he goes and turning half the city into a prideful nightmare. He and Justice have a lot of arguments about that last hobby, especially since it sends up a beacon of sin to anyone who can detect it.

When Pride discovers that one of his friends goes to Justice’s church, their activities bleed over to one another. They start inviting each other along to various outings with their respective groups. Over the course of the story, they stop becoming “enemies on the same side out of necessity” and start becoming real friends. They complain together about the things they disliked about Hell and Heaven respectively, and teach each other about what it’s really like to live there. They discover they’ve both been living in, essentially, opposing authoritarian regimes, with different, equally iron-fisted laws that need compliance from everyone to stay up and running.

Interpersonally, Pride and Justice are the oddest of odd couples there is, but they do help each other. Justice has been taught for this entire multi-century existence that he has to be good and pure at all times, to help people, make no mistakes, follow God’s word with no exceptions. Pride helps him be a little less of a perfectionist, and he learns it’s okay to be selfish sometimes. For his part, Pride needs… a lot of help. Justice and his friends are people who genuinely care about him, a completely alien concept to him. In particular, Justice gives him space to feel safe and accepted for once, and offers him the one thing he’d never dream of getting: forgiveness. Eventually, they fall in love. Cue the section of the story where I mash my characters together to make them kiss like I’m playing with dolls.

Sadly, things start going south. The first warning is when Lust becomes obscenely angry that Pride isn’t cooperating with its demands, and they have no choice but to fight and kill it in response. This battle sends up a huge flare for Honesty and her team out looking for them, but the angels are a bit smarter about their choice of attack. Instead of charging in swords-blazing, Honesty kidnaps Pride to use as a bargaining chip. She takes him to a church and tortures him to prove to Justice—once he shows up, radiating holy vengeance—that Pride will never change. He’ll be a demon forever and he’s wasting his time trying to save the unworthy.

Justice, defending Pride both physically and verbally, asks isn’t that the entire point? How is it a waste of time to have sympathy and love for the most unloved thing in the world? How is it against God to give grace to people who’ve made mistakes? He accuses Honesty and every angel at her side of Wrath, calling them all sinners for sitting there watching Pride be tormented for absolutely no reason other than he’s a demon, and they think he deserves pain. If this is God’s will, if this is the justice he’s meant to serve, he wants no part of it.

Unfortunately, this was what Honesty was waiting for. She abandons Pride and says, okay fine. If you don’t want to be an angel, you can be a demon like him. Justice is restrained, fighting against Honesty, who takes his sword to cut his wings off and break his halo, punishment for disobeying God.

Pride uses the last of his strength and rage to tackle Honesty before she can do a thing. Justice warns him not to kill her—it’s what she wants, it will only make things worse—and it’s the only reason Pride stays his hand. He tells her that outright, that he loves Justice more than he hates her, and that’s the only reason she isn’t in pieces. The other angels let Justice go and the two of them escape.

After returning home and recovering, Pride and Justice discover something even more pressing. They’re losing their powers, becoming more and more like humans every day. This wouldn’t be a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that Pride can’t complete his contract without his power—and if he can’t complete the contract, he dies. Even farther from a plan now, all they can do is promise to be with each other until the end.

That is, until one of the angels from Honesty’s brigade shows up to help—Kindness, Justice’s sister. She was horrified by everything that happened in that church, and confessed that there’s a small sect of Heaven that’s been on their side the whole time, too small to make real change, but willing to help however they can. Justice makes it clear that he and Pride are a package deal, no matter what, and she agrees. From there, they hatch the true plan to smuggle the soul up to Heaven.

The plan itself is still hazy for me. I know that Justice gets super-charged with angel powers once he goes back to Heaven. He’s been away for so long that his normal power is extremely potent for a while, and it’s a great help in defending against the inevitable opposition. Honesty will be there, she will most likely be killed, and Pride is able to deliver his soul and complete the contract. Hooray!

Bad news again! Pride is going to crumble into a pile of dust if he doesn’t get back down to Hell ASAP to restore his power. He can’t be in Heaven any longer than he already has—but he makes Justice promise to come find him. Justice agrees, and Pride returns to Hell.

Here, there’s going to be a POV switch to Justice’s perspective, as he prepares to traverse to Hell to find Pride. Kindness and his other angel friends are skeptical, but he insists that he made a promise, he has to leave. He’s not sure if he’ll be able to come back, and it hurts him to have to say goodbye to Kindness after only recently reuniting, but Pride is more important to him than staying in service to Heaven, a place that easily rejected him not too long ago.

Down in Hell, he finds Pride, but something is wrong. In his beast form (which I unfortunately don’t have a solid design for yet, but I promise it’s cool), Pride has also be super-charged with Hell’s power, but this means he’s also overloaded with sinful, prideful, energy, and he’s decided he doesn’t care about Justice anymore. Justice doesn’t take no for an answer, and Pride attacks.

Justice can’t bring himself to actually hurt Pride, so he’s subdued pretty quickly. Before Pride can deliver a killing blow, Justice is able to remind him why they loved each other, and the influence of the sin wears off. They run away together for a second time.

EDITOR’S NOTE: You can see Pride’s beast form here, drawn by AuroBlaze. I’m also changing Pride’s motivation for not caring about Justice, and it’s from the pain of being re-traumatized. He literally fell from Heaven into Hell for a second time which is… not an amazing experience. It takes Justice a while to find him, and in that time Pride convinced himself Justice isn’t coming for him at all. When he does show up, Pride blames him for all the pain he had to endure a second time, and lashes out. I want it to showcase how recovery isn’t linear, relapses happen, but it doesn’t mean you’re broken forever or incapable of healing. I’m messing with it. The rest is basically the same, there’s a fight, Justice is able to knock some sense into him, probably some crying, and then they escape.

The ending can go one of two ways, in my mind. I have a really cool image of Beast-Pride wearing Flaming-Wheel-Justice like a collar, stalking around Purgatory, but I have no idea what they would actually be doing there—other than hiding from Heaven and Hell. The second option is they go back to Earth and live out the rest of their lives as humans, which is the ending I’m sure everyone would want for them by the end of their ordeal. Optional semi-sad bonus: it’s been a few decades since they left, but they haven’t aged a day since the original story took place. When they go to meet their friends again, everyone has aged by 20-30 years and are… slightly concerned that the friends from their youth that disappeared one day have miraculously returned and look exactly the same. That might be a bit too much, though the sadistic part of my heart has entertained it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I chose the happy ending. They go back to Earth and live out the rest of their lives as humans with their friends. I still love the first idea though, and I might incorporate it into their escape from Hell in some way.

Details I still have to come up with include: how did Pride/Justice find a place to live? Did they steal a place, break in, use magic? Do they have jobs? Well, does Justice have a job, Pride would remain staunchly and diligently unemployed. What do the demons that try and get Pride on their side actually want from him? What are their ideas for getting back to Heaven before Kindness shows up? Do they try any? How do they fail? What’s Kindness’ plan, and how many angels are on their side? How do the other angels take Honesty during all this? Do they actually agree, or are they just following orders?

So! Plenty is subject to change, plenty still needs to be organized into a cohesive story, and plenty will of course be cut for the good of the final draft, but congrats on your first look into the earliest parts of a novel. Thoughts? Questions? I’d love to hear what you guys think!

Thanks as always for your support!

— Annika

from Pride & Justice by Annika Sage Ellis

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally posted to Ko-Fi for my Typewriter tier in 2023. I’m bringing it into the world for free now. Note that some things mentioned here may have changed or been reworked since I posted it. When deemed necessary, editor’s notes like this one will appear.

For any story that contains magic, it’s important to have a good idea of how it works and what its limitations are, even if the mechanics of the magic are never explored in the story. I like to have a full idea of what magic can and cannot do in my work, so that it doesn’t feel like a cheap cop-out.

In Pride & Justice, both angels and demons have similar but conflicting magic powers. In this post, I’ll be discussing the angels, and how Heaven functions!

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The Structure of Heaven

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a castle in the clouds. It’s not a castle at all, nor any sort of physical place someone might be able to reach. Heaven is one patch in a marvelous quilt of creation, stitched by the One and Only God. Like that same quilt folded into halves, Heaven rests over Earth, a dimension far beyond the stretch of outer space.

Humans, once called back to God after their deaths, can never return to Earth, merely able to peek over the edge and glimpse the world they left. Intentionally so—they were never meant to grasp the power that Heaven might grant, built for Earth and Earth alone. Angels, however, are created in Heaven and able to make use of their higher position, They can slip easily through the gaps in the stitching, hopping from one quilt-square to another. Most of the time, however, angels are working in Heaven, carrying out tasks they’re given by the Almighty to keep Heaven running.

Where the humans stay and where the angels work are separate. Paradise is a walled garden—while there may not be a castle, the gates are decidedly real. Those worthy of Heaven are escorted to the innermost sanctum of Heaven to begin their eternal rest, and on the way, they might pass thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of God’s soldiers. Angels defend Heaven tirelessly, ensuring that worthy souls can enjoy their well-earned peace.

And, as always, preparing for Judgement Day with a hand on their swords.

Angels

The soldiers and servants of God, created by Him to serve the interests of Heaven. They are made to be righteous, born with all capacity for good, compelled to aid humanity, and serve God wherever they go. They operate on a strict hierarchy, like any army should, and prioritize following orders to the letter.

After all, what could be more righteous than carrying out God’s Word?

Nameless

When angels are born, they have no names, nor a solid form. The flaming wheels, hundreds of eyes, dozens of wings, animal heads, and so on are a manifestation of their raw power, beautiful in its own way, but unfocused. Instead of being given a domain to watch over explicitly, God gives them a hidden purpose, a virtue to follow, and the free will to discover it for themselves.

The Nameless angels might take centuries to discover what they were made for. In that time they study under their fellow angels, contemplate God’s Word, and get sent to Earth to work miracles and observe humanity outside of paradise.

Once the Nameless discover the purpose God gave them, they are celebrated, named, and become Realized.

Realized

A Realized angel is one who has embodied their virtue so completely that it reshapes them. This can be any virtue in God’s Kingdom—there are angels of honesty, passion, charity, justice, faith, and so on. Each of the Realized are named for their given virtue and are permitted to choose a secondary form: a form resembling humanity, built in God’s own image.

Angels can choose the ins and outs of their new forms, down to the very minuscule details. Some even choose to keep some of their Nameless features—multiple heads, sets of wings, limbs, and so on. Importantly, though, once an angel has chosen their Realized form, their state is permanent. Realizing the purpose God created them for can only happen once, obviously, and the resulting change is a blessing. Not to be questioned or challenged. In times of great need, they can revert to their Nameless forms for a less concentrated but extremely powerful blast of holy energy.

Once Realized, angels are given more concrete tasks to perform around Heaven. Many are still sent to Earth, and studying under God and each other is an eternal practice, but now they can be equipped as the soldiers they were born to be.

Virtues like justice, diligence, and fortitude join the ranks as Heaven’s army. For organization, honesty, prudence, and temperance maintain the structure of Heaven and keep God’s Word at the forefront. The gentler virtues, like kindness, charity, hope, and faith remain steadfast protectors of humanity and help keep the hardened soldiers in check. The remainder—virtues like patience, humility, love, and passion—are the main force that fly down to Earth to bless humanity, though they play a role in Heaven too. Even their fellow angels need occasional reminders of what they’re fighting for.

Archangels

If all of Heaven is an army, the Archangels are its generals, bringing orders from God down to the ordinary rank-and-file. They rarely go to Earth, and even their fellow angels don’t see much of them. They’re hardly seen outside the few moments when orders are delivered, only carrying out the highest caliber of tasks themselves. All of them sit very close to the Throne of God, a place no other angel is permitted to tread… anymore.

Lately, the orders from the archangels, supposedly the Word of God Himself, have grown erratic and contradicting. Some might even call them paranoid, trying to fix problems that don’t exist, or that would cause a great deal more of them. Since the change, the Archangels have ordered on God’s behalf to tighten ranks, monitor the gates, scrutinize every last soul seeking refuge in the Kingdom of Heaven. Having no choice, the Kingdom of Heaven agreed.

Things are tense among the ordinary angels. God hasn’t been seen outside His throne room for centuries. The Archangels don’t seem to understand the orders they’re giving either. To quell the confusion, they insist that everyone trust in God’s Word and carry out His mission. When the Day of Judgement comes, they’ll all be thankful they did.

Power

In Heaven, an angel’s power is negligible. They serve God, they live eternally, they protect Heaven, but they’re only as powerful as each other. The laws of their realm are not easily persuaded by any but God Himself. It’s when they travel to Earth that their power becomes awesome indeed, able to bend and warp reality almost by mistake.

An angel at their full capacity for power will be able to perform miracles, grant blessings, and heal any wound they touch, but it’s unsustainable to all but the most powerful archangels to remain at their full capacity for long. Without a regular connection to Heaven—the dimension that is the source of their power—an angel’s abilities will begin to wane and become less potent. Eventually, their inherent gifts might drain so far that they become stuck on Earth, trapped as a human with no way to return.

Most rank-and-file angels visiting Earth for short periods use almost all their power in one burst to perform a single miracle, and then immediately retreat to avoid this fate. As all angels can feel the emotional and physical pain of the humans nearest to them, with a very wide range, this makes it easy to find places where miracles are needed. This is especially true of the Nameless, who find it difficult to maintain a presence on Earth for very long anyway. Once Realized, they’re able to focus their miracles to the pain that would best be served by their virtue, aiding humanity in more specific ways.

A minority of Realized angels wander with their powers hidden from the world around them, existing as perfectly average humans until they find an opportunity that suits them best. This is something taken up by angels that have existed for centuries upon centuries, who know their limits well, and have spent time among humans in paradise and on Earth enough to know how to blend in. Although, blending in isn’t always necessary.

When an angel spreads their wings on Earth, usually in preparation to use their power, humans stop seeing them. A being that exists between planes of existence is incalculable for the human brain to process, so their vision is simply edited not to see them. The only ones that perceive the angel are the ones that the angel directs their power to. Once the angel is gone, however, the memory is quickly edited again. Some are left wondering if what they saw was real, some forget it entirely. Either way, a miracle occurs.

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So! That was the world-building I have set up so far. What do you think? I hope I got across the domino cascade that leads to the story, and why it starts as soon as Justice breaks the rules—or at least part of it. Because next time, we’re talking about Hell!

Thanks for your generous support, as always!

— Annika

from Pride & Justice by Annika Sage Ellis

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally posted to Ko-Fi for my Typewriter tier in 2023. I’m bringing it into the world for free now. Note that some things mentioned here may have changed or been reworked since I posted it. When deemed necessary, editor’s notes like this one will appear.

I couldn’t have a post about Heaven without a follow-up about Hell, so here we are! For this world-building post, I’ll be discussing how Pride & Justice’s version of Hell functions and how demon powers work.

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The Structure of Hell

When Lucifer and his fellow revolutionaries were cast from Heaven, with their wings torn from them and their halos broken, a river of fire awaited them. As the first fallen angels screamed and burned and boiled alive, the strength of Lucifer’s rage alone was enough to transform them all, and the realm God doomed them to wander. Using the last of the power Heaven granted him, the former archangel molded himself to the fabric of the wasteland dimension, bent it to his will, and proclaimed a new kingdom—the Kingdom of Hell. And proclaimed himself its new God.

Empowered from the fresh spring of energy, Lucifer granted his followers gifts that compared to God’s blessings. He preached a new way of life, away from the tyranny they’d all risen up against. No more would they be abandoned for the fleeting affection of a new creation. Any who were unworthy in Heaven would be welcomed with open arms in Hell—to be among their true siblings, where all were powerful, and all were heard.

In time, however, Lucifer’s grand promises were proven less than the sum of their parts. Festering in pain and anger and pride, he encouraged other fallen angels—demons—do the same. To let the anger for Heaven and God fuel them the same way he’d done to create their new home, and to take the name of their sin. He taught them to show no mercy, accept no compromises, and always, always fight when slighted. Under his rule, the Kingdom of Hell had only one law: survival of the fittest. The demons within became ruthlessly cutthroat and transactional. Whereas Heaven is a well-oiled machine, Hell is an army of gears with nothing to power but their own fury.

The one thing all demons could agree on was that they had all been abandoned, and one day their rage would be so great that God Himself would tremble.

Demons

Though they were once angels, demons have very little in common with their holy cousins. When an angel is banished to Hell, their wings are cut off to forbid a return to Heaven. Their halos are broken, and the halves are driven into their skulls, creating horns that eternally spark and smoke. As they fall, the blinding speed and remainder of their holy flame create comet-trails that grow tails from their backs. And when they land in Hell at last, they spend ages and ages burning alive, in agony.

Lucifer encourages newly fallen demons to use their rage to transform themselves permanently, pitching it as the same gift God gives His Realized angels. This second change is limited, but it’s enough for most demons to applaud Lucifer for his awesome power. Part of this change comes in their true forms—the transformation from the lack of wings, halo, and pain mutates their Nameless forms. Instead of great rings of fire, they become enormous beasts, and no two are the same. They can be animalistic, nothing more than sludge, or anything in between.

Like angels can embody any virtue, demons can embody any sin. Sloth, wrath, greed, gluttony, lust, and pride, often an inverse of the virtue they served in Heaven, though not always. While temperance can easily become sloth, it is just as easy for it to become wrath. Love or passion have the easiest path to lust, but also have quick tracks to greed or pride. Assuming a demon’s past virtue based on the sin that caused their fall is flawed—and a useless practice. There are few demons who acknowledge they were ever angels, devoted wholly to their new purpose.

Powers

Like angels, a demon’s powers in Hell are only as relevant as any other demon they happen to cross paths with. As fighting and displays of strength are far more common in Hell, the use of sheer brutal strength is the most common “power” wielded amongst other demons. But, again like angels, when they travel to Earth their powers become exceedingly potent.

Many demons despise humans, especially those who fell in Lucifer’s rebellion. For this reason, they might refuse to interact with Earth and humanity altogether, satisfied with prowling in the fire and shadows of Hell with other demons. Other demons who desire power whenever they can get it, or whose animosity is particularly twisted, rise to Earth in an attempt to condemn others to their same fate.

Similarly to an angel, a demon can’t remain at their full power on Earth forever, as it will drain without access to Hell, and they’ll become trapped as humans. However, very few demons come to Earth with the intent to use their full power in the first place—humans aren’t worth such an expense. Instead, demons sniff out humans that have the potential for sin, and earnestly push a small handful of them in the direction of damnation. Where angels cause miracles, demons cause adversity.

“Sniff” is almost literal in this case. Whereas angels can sense human’s pain, when a demon changes, as do their powers. After their transformation, demons can taste potential and active sin, with the strength of the flavor increasing the closer they are to the source. Most demons can only taste, and therefore influence, the sin of their origin—demons of gluttony can only taste the potential for gluttony, for example—with one notable exception. Pride, the root of all sin, has the power to detect all kinds of sin.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I forgot to mention it, but the sin of pride has special extra powers because Lucifer, who fell for his pride, is, like, really self-centered.

The way a demon pushes a human toward sin is a matter of infiltration. If a human doesn’t act upon their potential for sin, the mere thought doesn’t make them sinful. It’s only counted as a strike against them if the sin is acted upon, and tangibly hurts another. A demon’s purpose for coming to Earth is to seek out these potential sinners, and goad them in that direction. They directly use their powers as influence, to convince a human to act on that thought, and damn themselves. Whether or not the demon succeeds is up to the strength of the human to resist the suggestion, their personal willingness to harm another, and how much pushing the demon has to do.

Like an angel’s wings, a demon becomes invisible if they reveal their horns and tail, visible only to the human they’re currently engaged with. Once the demon disappears, the human will forget them entirely, convinced that they made up their minds all on their own.

The classic “deal with the devil” can’t be forgotten, of course. Demons rarely stick around on Earth disguised as humans, but those that do intend to get a little more out of their causing of sin than sick satisfaction. Taking possession of a soul means more than simply adding a tally on Hell’s population count—it’s a mark of status among demons, to have successfully claimed a soul. Demons make deals with each other as well as humans, forming brief alliances to defeat a common enemy—as long as one has something the other is willing to pay them with. Those that fail to complete their contracts or break them early—whether for a human or another demon—are hunted for the display of weakness.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Slight change here! When demons break or fail their contracts, they die. When they make contracts, with humans or each other, they necessarily tie their own soul to the completion of it. That’s another reason why it’s a status symbol—only the most badass of demons would risk their eternal lives for an ego boost. Most demons will intentionally make sure they have the maximum amount of time or infinite chances to complete the contract to wiggle out of that unfortunate side effect, but not everything can be snuck out of that way. If a demon with a contract bound to their soul were to, say, stay on Earth long enough that they lose their powers and become human, they’d die the instant their power fully left, or when the contract can’t be completed, whichever comes first.

The Sinful

But what of humanity? What of the sinful humans who aren’t permitted to enter God’s Kingdom?

While Lucifer boasted Hell as a place where all would be heard, none would be cast out, and any found unworthy by God were welcome, privately he still seethed at what he blamed as the reason for his downfall: humanity. The puny creatures that stole God’s love from him, and caused him to be cast out for simply asking what he was due.

When the first humans rejected by God turned up at his doorstep, Lucifer quickly changed his tune. If the Kingdom of Hell was to be like the Kingdom of Heaven, this meant there would inevitably be an unworthy class. After all, if it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for them.

The sinful spend the rest of their eternal lives tormented by, or in service to, the demons that populate Hell. They truly are the lowest class of the universe. Heaven won’t help them, and Purgatory may have already failed them. Not even other demons, abandoned by God and intimately aware of their plight, feel sympathy for them, consumed eternally by bitterness and vengeance.

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Well, here we are! This one got long, but I had a lot I wanted to talk about regarding demons. I thought about it a lot, since the protagonist is a demon, and I’m really excited to hear what everyone thinks!

Thanks for your generous support, as always!

— Annika

from Pride & Justice by Annika Sage Ellis

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally posted to Ko-Fi for my Typewriter tier in 2023. I’m bringing it into the world for free now. Note that some things mentioned here may have changed or been reworked since I posted it. When deemed necessary, editor’s notes like this one will appear.

Traditionally in Christianity, Purgatory isn’t a place, like pop culture depicts. It’s actually a “cleansing ritual” that some people have to go through to be worthy of Heaven. Sometimes it involves literally being cleansed in fire! However, I’m going with the more pop-culture-y depiction of Purgatory because it better fits the tone of the story, and allows me to do a little more sociopolitical commentary. Which I love, and will always do. Anyway, here it is!

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The Structure of Purgatory

In the quilt of the universe, Purgatory is a fascinating square. It holds a mirror to Earth, reflecting it as a plain, unchanging, eerie dreamworld. There are things that look familiar to the souls that wander there, but with a distinct alien veneer that reminds them they are not in the same place they left.

Souls who aren’t worthy of Heaven, but aren’t sinful enough to be sent to Hell, are prescribed time to think and to repent in Purgatory. God gives them a second chance after death to reconcile their sin, and once they’ve atoned to His satisfaction, they’re permitted to take their place in paradise. Those that aren’t forgiven wander until their souls eventually fade to Hell.

Those wandering Purgatory cannot enter or exit of their own volition. The process of forgiveness or fading can take centuries. Hundreds of years of circling in the same empty plane with other souls, just as aimless. Simply put, Purgatory is a holding cell, for those souls who have nowhere else to go.

Wandering Souls

Though they certainly can, the immortal beings of other realms rarely appear in Purgatory. Angels and demons can travel in and out whenever they wish, but angels appear only to bring souls there or relieve others of their roaming, and demons have little use for souls that can’t be further corrupted. The souls of Purgatory have very little company outside each other.

The souls that wander are given little direction as to how they’re meant to appropriately repent. They have not broken their relationship with God, they’re assured, only injured it, and that injury can be repaired with time and atonement. However, many souls in Purgatory are confused as to why they’re even supposed to be repenting. Lying, gossiping, drinking to excess, failure to pray, and suicide are all on the list of venial sins that these lonely souls are meant to be making amends for.

For those confused, they have plenty of time to work through the feeling. Souls in Purgatory are meant to consider their mistakes in life, atone for them, and God would recognize the way they’ve held themselves accountable and offer forgiveness. Eventually.

Some souls, though, become frustrated. Some felt their sin was unavoidable, some felt they didn’t have a choice. Some had no idea they were sinning in the first place, they thought they were doing the right thing. It’s difficult for many souls to capitulate to a God they had never believed in, or to apologize for something they couldn’t have averted.

But even among those that atone as best they can, the resounding silence from above becomes disheartening indeed. After centuries and centuries of wandering, plenty expect that they’ll never be forgiven, no matter how long or how many times they repent. When the angels appear to usher the scant few forgiven souls to Heaven, leaving countless others behind, the demoralization drives them deeper and deeper into despair.

Forgiveness and Fading

The process of being forgiven is, in writing, very simple. Once God has decided a soul wandering Purgatory has repented to His satisfaction, He orders an angel to bring them to Heaven.

In practice, the qualifiers for “satisfactory repentance” are vague. The criteria for one soul might be wildly different from another, regardless of their sin. Some are waiting for a short amount of time compared to the souls that wander the longest, and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to which souls are accepted and which aren’t. God seems more determined than ever to smoke out the unworthy, and the length of time it takes for any one soul to reach forgiveness stretches far longer than many of Heaven’s agents think is justified—though these angels are wise enough not to voice their criticisms.

Part of the unspoken concern lies in the fact that souls in Purgatory don’t stay there for eternity. The longer they sit, the more they despair, the closer they are to giving up on the chance of being forgiven altogether. Many don’t see a point, after waiting for so long. God had abandoned them, left them to rot and tread the same ground over and over, waiting for a forgiveness that would never come. When these souls turn their backs on Heaven, there is only one place for them to go.

Hell doesn’t “claim” souls from Purgatory. Demons aren’t sent up to collect them, and it’s not as though the souls from Purgatory are itching for damnation. Instead, God watches these souls slip farther from forgiveness, and eventually He lets them go. Like a fishing line, He stops reeling them in, and releases them to the depths.

And though Hell doesn’t necessarily gather up these lost souls on purpose, Lucifer will accept them happily. After all, what better way to motivate his army than with more fodder to be made an example of? What better way to show them how pointless God’s plans are, than with the very souls He claimed to love so much, abandoned at their doorstep? The constant churning of Purgatory’s lost souls are the perfect talking point—remember how much God loved His creations? This is what He thinks of them now. The only option becomes overthrowing Heaven, and proving themselves righteous.

The angels in Heaven who are brave or foolish enough to speak of this problem openly, do so in whispers. They wonder why God is so concerned with keeping out every soul with even a sliver of impurity. They wonder why so few souls get brought up from Purgatory these days, and even if they do, why they stay there for so long. They worry about innocent souls going to Hell under their watch, suffering needlessly for the sake of holy paranoia.

And then they’re decisively hushed, for fear of joining the unholy ranks.

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There it is! Those of you who read Justice’s backstory on Tumblr might have found some of this familiar.

I’m not sure how much of all this lore, from Heaven on downwards, will make it into the full story, but I’m glad I got to share it with all of you to make sure someone other than me gets to hear my thoughts!

Thanks as always for your support!

— Annika

from Pride & Justice by Annika Sage Ellis

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In the story, Pride trips and falls into making exactly three (3) friends, and one cat. This is a post about them!

Picrews here: Nellseto’s Maker, TOON ME! Body types A and B, Djarn’s Character Maker, felidaze’s warrior cat creator, Cat Creator || ネコ アイコンメーカー, felidaze’s cool cat creator

Olivia “Ollie” Clearwater

She/They | Trans Butch Lesbian | “Only motherfucker in this city who can handle me.” - Pride, probably

Olivia grew up with extreme Christian fundamentalists for parents, controlled and sheltered all her life. Her only knowledge of queerness was as a one-way trip to Hell, and her knowledge of transness was non-existent. Even as deeply closeted as she was, Ollie chafed against her parents’ strict upbringing, and began lashing out at an early age—and suffering the consequences.

In her attempts to free herself, even momentarily, Ollie found smoking and “the devil’s music” to be particularly freeing. By thirteen, she was regularly sneaking packs of cigarettes and death metal albums into her room, and taking them with her every time she left so they wouldn’t be found. Making up excuses about kids smoking at the bus stop saved her for a little while, but she knew it was only a matter of time.

Desperate, she held on until her she graduated, shipped off to college, and then her deep dive into everything forbidden began. The longer she strayed on the outskirts of what her parents found acceptable, the more she discovered. From metal, to grunge, to punk, Ollie found the queer community on her college campus and beyond, After so many years, she finally discovered herself.

Time ran out at the end of her first visit back home for the holidays. All her secrets exploded from her in a heated argument, and her parents instantly cut contact. With no money to pay tuition, Ollie had no choice but to leave her degree unfinished. And with nowhere to go, she was homeless for several years, couch-surfing with her few college friends, and sleeping on the streets.

After what felt like a lifetime of strife, she found solace in the community aid the local punk scene strung together for her. They helped her find temporary housing, work, and have a life again. Now in her early thirties, she credits them to this day for allowing her to live the rest of her life, and is active in fiercely defending it and supporting people like her.

Though Olivia does not dream of labor, she makes ends meet working retail, and spends a significant chunk of it on edibles as she attempts to quit smoking after nearly two decades.

Sofía Torres-Iglesias

She/Her | Cis Lesbian | The obligatory catgirl in every queer friend group

Sofía was born a second-generation immigrant to her Mexican parents, having a familiar childhood that many queer people might recognize—feeling different, but without the language to explain why. When she was young, she simply didn’t understand why anyone would want a boyfriend in the first place. Growing older, and learning how strange it was for her to turn up her nose family members asking about her non-existent boy crushes, she bottled the feeling and tried not to think about it too much. She spent time with her friends and nodded along with all the teenage squealing about the boys from her school, and saying what people wanted to hear when asked about her own preferences.

Eventually, she found the words of her community. She sat on the knowledge for years, until coming out to her parents in a nervous rush before her quinceañera. After a lot of tears and hugging, the celebration went off without a hitch, with Sofía confident her parents supported her.

However, as time went on, it seemed clear that they supported her… insofar as they accepted her “experimenting” in this “phase.” They were confused about how she could possibly be a lesbian because she loved pink, and kittens, and femininity—nothing like the marimacho they imagined queer women to be. It took Sofía a long time to establish with them how to talk about her sexuality and her community in ways that didn’t make her want to scream, in addition to convincing them that she would never find “the right man” to “fix” her.

After many more years, a few messy early-twenties-relationships, Sofía was finally able to convince her parents it wasn’t a phase. At last, she could breathe.

She met Ollie in her late twenties at a gay bar, and they rented the U-Haul a month later. Three years have passed, they’re still together, sharing an apartment and a cat named Marbles. Sofía has a day-job tutoring kids in Spanish, but hopes to one day be able to afford to go to veterinary school.

Dante Price

They/Them | Nonbinary Asexual | Can and will quote the Divine Comedy verbatim

Dante’s first canvas was always their own body. The story of their young self using finger-paints on everything except the paper was a popular anecdote of their parents, to the point where everyone at church could recite it word-for-word. This love of art continued through their childhood, from crayons to paints to their mother’s make-up and it was all fine—until it suddenly wasn’t.

On a dime, Dante’s creativity was stifled. Their hands slapped away from eye shadow and lipstick, there was suddenly an acceptable art, and an unacceptable art. Growing up with a younger sister brought the unfairness into sharp relief—she was allowed to toy with make-up, dolls, and glitter. But Dante wasn’t.

Nothing that was shoved into their hands as “proper” ever felt right. Not sports, martial arts, or any school subject sat right with them. They struggled to stay focused on anything except art, doodles getting snatched up and torn to pieces in class as punishment for their lack of attention. Later, they would be diagnosed with ADHD, years too late to save them from a miserable public school experience.

Dante drifted through life, listless and feeling destined to fail. The things they loved weren’t allowed, and the things they sucked at were the only way to succeed. Stuck in the middle of an impossible situation, there was nothing they could do.

One place they escaped this limbo was in Dante’s Divine Comedy, obsessed with the epic poem to the point of near-encyclopedic knowledge. The journey consumed them, a trip through Hell, into Heaven, and finally finding God and the love that aligns a soul. Such a path felt impossible for them, but they clung to the possibility.

School sucked, with shit grades, few friends, and net-zero interest in dating anyone or anyone dating them. Home sucked, with an air of disappointment hanging above their parents’ heads. But one day, they would escape it. That they would exit Hell, and scrape their way to Heaven.

Before they knew it, high school was over, and Dante was expected to have a plan. They went to community college, because they had to do something, and joined the GSA after reading the word “asexual” on a flier. The more meetings they attended, the more they talked about existing in the in-between, the more the rest of their life started to make sense. It felt like climbing closer to Heaven, and Dante named themself after their favorite poet, hoping beyond hope it would give them strength.

They mulled over coming out for a long time. Their parents were just now starting to feel proud of them—would this ruin it? Would they be trapped forever? Dante tested the waters by telling their sister, Aria, and cried from relief when she accepted them, said she would help.

It was… a difficult series of conversations. Their parents were confused, not understanding what “nonbinary” even meant, or how Dante could be asexual when they haven’t ever dated anyone—they were just inexperienced. But they agreed to use Dante’s new name and pronouns, and that was more than Dante expected. And, to help them the rest of the way along, they offered some of the resources the GSA handed out, to help them through the process.

Things got better faster than they ever expected. Much less than simply tolerating their queerness, Dante witnessed their parents switch to a more progressive church in the name of respecting it. They bought make-up again, learned how to use it like paint on a canvas, something they also found love in after so many years of getting their art torn to shreds.

Now, with a supportive community, family, and self, Dante is working toward an art degree, and basking in the light of the love that set their soul right.

Marbles

He/Him | Grey & White Tabby | No thoughts. Only treats.

Sofía’s beloved cat. He has one brain cell the size of a marble that bounces around his skull. He is very spoiled and enjoys ear scratches.