Stamp ALLEGORY across this one in big flaming letters. We do a little didactic fanfic. Call this D'Arc Knight of the Soul, even. (Personal? No, this story isn't personal. It's extremely personal.)

If this somehow reaches a reader unfamiliar with Azur Lane- imagine a WW2 setting but all the boats are women. Hence, Jeanne d'Arc is the training cruiser here, not the saint, Richelieu and Jean Bart are battleships, etc.

And yeah I know a cruiser doing this sort of mission alone is unlikely but Jeanne seemed best for the story I'm trying to tell. The pious knight with big shoes to fill.


Jeanne d'Arc took a knee. "Your Eminence."

"Jeanne." Richelieu smiled through her stress, bags under her eyes heavy. "I'm glad you came. I know things have been…"

Bad. Exceedingly bad.

"Regardless, I have a mission for you. There is an object- a relic- currently in Italian territory. They've proven… surprisingly ambivalent about it, but it cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the Germans."

The thought made Jeanne's stomach churn. Losing an artifact to a mundane enemy of war would be horrible enough, but the Germans? No. Her expression hardened.

Richelieu smiled, pulling out a scrap of paper. "This paper has a map to the monastery where it is, and a passphrase. Memorize it, and burn it."

"Of course, your eminence."

"May the merciful God bless and keep us both."

After that simple blessing, Jeanne d'Arc departed- there was nothing more to do, nothing more than could be done, than her duty.


The first day of sailing was mostly uneventful: she cast off from the shore, said goodbye to her friends, and went south. The current plan was to stop for provender and resupply at Corsica, with another possible stop at Tunis if the situation didn't deteriorate.

After that, things would get dicey. Maybe a stop in allied Malta, but otherwise she would have to sneak her way around Italy, into the Adriatic, and then inland. She could afford to lose the ship, for what it was worth, but it would still be a challenge.

And she would have to bear it all alone. No others escorted her, and orders were for strict radio silence. She couldn't say a word, even as the others talked. (If worse came to worse, she might find herself with company in Tunis. Well, that seemed to be the plan, when she wasn't just overhearing arguing.)

There was something sort of gratifying about being assigned such a mission and being trusted to do it alone. She had always hoped to fulfill her duty in some form or the other. She wouldn't necessarily say she was joyful as she adjusted her course for Ajaccio, considering how dire circumstances were to force a mere training cruiser into duty…

But she was made for duty. Made for a calling. She cut through the waves with a target always before her- a star over the wild sea.

(The sea had actually proved itself rather tame, so far.)

Unfortunately, she hadn't departed early enough to get to Corsia before night fell, so by the time she had arrived it was quite late. The sky was thick with stars, and yet the small collection of lights at the port almost felt a more welcome sight.

There wasn't much resupply needed after half a day's travel, but a friendly harbor was nice. Depending on how Tunis panned out, it could be the last she saw for a while.

Her welcome party consisted of a single man, sallow-faced and dark-eyed, who said that she "could stay the night, I suppose, as long as you don't cause any trouble on shore."

Trouble on shore seemed to consist of being on shore in any capacity, unfortunately. Maybe it was her outfit or something, or just the fact that she happened to be a shipgirl. Whatever the case, she would be spending the night alone.

Knowing that, Jeanne went through her things- as few as she had- and found what she was looking for: a copy of Richelieu's writings. She had been hesitant to publish them, as if she didn't give the most remarkable homilies, but eventually caved in.

It was something to take her mind off things, at least.

The New Polytheism

In ancient times, various peoples and cultures had their own gods. The people of Athens sheltered under the owl wings of their warrior goddess, while the peoples of rugged Arcadia worshiped their own rugged nature god, Pan.

The style was henotheism: among the families or tribes of deities, there was yours. Your patron, your city-god, the great power who stood over your nation. There is animosity among the ranks, as surely as people and states scuffle, but it is not revolutionary. There is your god, and there are the rest.

And then there is the turning point. The Lord is your God, and there is no other! The rules are broken, a revolution springs to life. Little god destroyer, idol wrecker, purifying fire: YHWH, the living God of Israel.

Israel wavered. They double back, they sacrifice to the gods of surrounding cultures, but in their midst is revolution. There is no god of Athens, no god of Arcadia, of Carthage or Ur. No Asherah, no Baal, no Ra. There is the God of all the world, and there is nothing other.

God made a covenant: through Abraham's descendants, all the world would find blessing. For God is the only wellspring, and he wishes to spread to the nations.

That is the true meaning of the word catholic. Universality. All should know God.

Why have I chosen to entitle this essay the New Polytheism, then? Have we not left behind our nation-gods, and walked proudly into an age of international brotherhood?

We have not.

A new family of gods has been born from the Titanomachy of the Great War: Fascism, Nazism, and Falangism, three nation-gods who demand sacrifice to shame Baal Hammon. Their tamer relatives sit as sovereigns across Europe, the subjects of love and sacrifice, worshiped in halls of politics and schoolhouses.

Perhaps I am being too theological about all of this. It can be put in a more secular way:

Do not settle for petty worship. "What is good for Germany? What is good for France? What is good for women, for union workers, for bosses, for Jews and Gentiles? What advances the interests of Algeria, international communism, or my company?"

Rather, ask this: What is good? What is just? What is true? That is your sacred duty.

Jeanne closed the booklet, did some final checks, and attempted to sleep. Going forward, things would only get harder.


She awoke peacefully, although a little later than she probably should have. A jolt of fear went through her at the possibility of having been spotted by Italian aircraft, and that served to dispel any remaining drowsiness better than caffeine would.

The sky was almost painfully clear, the heat alleviated slightly by a cool salt breeze. Nice weather for a pleasure cruise, less ideal for a secret mission- but there wasn't much she could do about that, really. As she prepared to cast off, she went through morning prayers, long since memorized. She had just about finished with the antiphon when she spotted it- a humble basket, sitting on the dock's edge. After a moment or two of hesitation, she approached it, looked it over, carefully lifted the blue fabric hiding the contents…

Fresh food, certainly an improvement over the rations she choked down the previous evening. Apples, bread… it was enough to make her stomach rumble. She mumbled Grace to herself as she lifted the basket and brought it aboard, yet she couldn't quite bring herself to eat. Considering the current political climate, could she trust random food?

She would certainly like to think so, but she wasn't sure. Sorting through the basket revealed no smoking gun- as if any poisoner would leave the tools of his trade sitting in the bottom of the basket- so she decided to keep it, at least for now. After a few moments of thought, she decided to place the basket somewhere other than her quarters.

After that- and a rather unfortunate sandwich- she cast off, heading eastward so that she would curve around Sardinia. Doing some rough math, if she sailed into the night for a grand total of fifteen hours, then she would arrive in Tunis. That probably meant she would arrive at midnight- not exactly great for her sleep- but it would mean not wasting time near the Italians. That seemed preferable.


She stayed far away enough to not spot Sardinia itself, but that still left the possibility of seaplanes or submarines or all sorts. She tried to keep her eyes peeled, even as great, heavy clouds rolled in, covering up the sky- they might do something to hide her from planes, but they'd certainly make it harder for her to realize if she was spotted.

The loneliness she felt between mainland France and Corsica was of an entirely different sort than this. There was a sort of vague thought that if she met someone during that leg of the journey, they might be friendly, French comrades. Now, though? She had to be prepared, had to be constantly aware in case of attack. It wasn't good for the nerves.

It was around dinnertime when she passed the island of San Pietro; at least, that was what her estimate was, although she knew how bad dead reckoning could be- navigational errors would pile ontop of each other, building and building, and she didn't currently have means to correct it. She couldn't even chart her path by the stars, considering how dense the clouds were above. (She actually did know how to use sextants and the like, but that needed stars too…)

On the bright side, she couldn't exactly miss Africa. She could crash into it, definitely, but if she kept on sailing south, she'd find it eventually. Then it was just a matter of sailing east to Tunisia. Simple as that.

All she had to do was not get sunk. Easy.

Several times during her journey, the rhythmic beating of the waves against her hull and the gentle rocking nearly sent her to sleep. In an attempt to fight sleep, she tuned into the radio, hoping that it might keep her from falling asleep. For what it was worth, it did help.

"Minister Reynaud has proposed a retreat to North Africa, in order to continue the fight against the Germans after the fall of Calais…"

As she navigated, she thought of ships not quite as lucky as her. Ones who had no weapons, no military training, and who were desperately attempting to pull out from France. There was a bitter taste in her mouth. The country her namesake had fought and bled and died for, lost. How could she possibly sleep easy, knowing that?

She was almost certain she was off course now; the heavy winds and her drowsiness had done nothing to help her dead reckoning, and she couldn't be certain that she wouldn't just crash in this darkness. Would it be better to stop? To try to catch a bit of sleep, perhaps?


Morning came, dusting the undersides of the clouds with reds and oranges. It was still dreadfully overcast, but at least she could see- letting her head off southeast with speed. Jeanne muttered her prayers through breakfast, trying to make up for… well, she wasn't sure if she had prayed last night. It was all rather fuzzy, but with a clear head, she made her way to Tunis.

Somehow, the city felt more real than it ever had before- perhaps because she arrived there in a time of war, on a mission, instead of merely trundling there on a training cruise. A safe harbor was pleasant enough, but she spotted the smooth lines of hulls- the hulls of fully fledged warships, not just merchant craft. Hopefully, she wouldn't be the last arrival…

As she approached the dock, she saw a familiar face- and Maille Breze certainly recognized her. "Jeanne! Jeanne!" She cried, running over to the dock's edge to greet her.

"Maille. You're looking well."

"We were worried about you! You went totally silent on us!"

"Richelieu's orders, sorry!"

Maille Breze's eyes widened. "Of course! Would thou happen to have room for two?"

"No. Her Eminence has requested utmost secrecy. Speaking of…"

"She's trying to stay in mainland France, I think. Morale and stuff."

"Then who…?"

"Jean Bart."

"Is she even finished?" Jeanne gasped.

"One working turret."

Jeanne nodded, before her train of thought grew more grim. "And what of Gascogne and Clemenceau?"

Maille Breze flinched. "Not seaworthy, we don't think…"


Jeanne knew that hoping for relaxation in Tunis would be kind of vain, considering the ongoing battle in France. (Some whispers were already calling it the fall of France…) Still, she had thought that the least they could manage was a united front.

There was mumbling about how grossly unprepared they had been, about the sheer magnitude of their failure. They had worried about it, expected it, planned for it, and still crumpled. Despite guessing right, their preparation wasn't enough- and that meant pointing fingers.

Concrete, supposedly ironclad doctrine had crumpled under unpredictable modern assault. The bastions they had built up had been circumvented with ease.

Jeanne received some respite from those conversations when she was summoned by Jean Bart. Instead of some stuffy office, she held court near the port, where the workers scrambled to complete her hull and other ships ran back and forth following her orders.

It seemed rather inglorious, having their command center under a suspended tarp, but Jeanne supposed it was humble. She circled around to the front, going into a bow and curtsy almost automatically. "Jeanne d'Arc reporting, your Eminence-"

"Get up, get up!"

Jeanne looked up into eyes almost exactly like Lady Richelieu's. They were perhaps a touch redder, framed by blonde hair a shade darker, but the similarity to her sister was obvious. Barring the arm in the sling and the wildly different clothes, that was.

"You're… the training cruiser, right?"

"Yes. Training cruiser Jeanne d'Arc, my lady."

"Cut it out with the 'my lady' stuff, alright?"

"Yes, my- ah, sorry."

"You were close with Riche, then?"

It took her a moment to figure that one out. "Lady Richelieu? I suppose. I took orders from her before…"

"Orders?" Jean Bart asked. "I don't have anything, paperwork's a damned catastrophe…"

"They were given privately."

"Privately?"

"I believe Lady Richelieu wished for utmost secrecy. I was given orders to burn the document she gave me."

Jean Bart frowned. "Riche and secrets. What a surprise."

Jeanne gulped. "Ma'am?"

After a few moments of thought, Jean Bart sighed. "You're going to follow her orders no matter what I say, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Just… resupply and don't get in our way."

And so Jeanne did.

A few of the others attempted to ask about her mission: Maille Breze did so out of genuine curiosity, as far as she could tell, but she tried not to talk to anyone about it. Maybe Jeanne was just making something out of nothing, though…

She thought about getting heaps and heaps of food, but quickly realized that was a silly idea. Considering her goal- Italy- she wouldn't have a chance to eat through most of it. It would be dead weight at best and a dead giveaway to the Italians at worst.

There was also, she supposed, the basket of food she had received in Corsica. Most of it was still good, although the apples were perhaps a touch less crisp than before… she still wasn't sure if they were good. She'd like to think it some genuine expression of compassion from a caring Corsican, but doubt was always there. The basket would be good for something, at least.

Thankfully, the fact that her requests were so meager meant that they could usually be met. She hadn't fired a single shell in the course of her journey and had enough fuel to donate some spare to the others. Her planning didn't go unnoticed, though.

"You're sure this is safe, Jeanne?" Dunkerque asked, taking her hand before she could board.

"No."

Dunkerque wasn't surprised- perhaps she already knew. She squeezed Jeanne's hand. "You're preparing like you won't come back."

"Success or failure, I won't. Not for…" she trailed off, not completely sure when the mission would come to an end.

"I'd offer you something before you go, but I don't have much to cook with at the moment…" There was a half-hearted smile on her face, and Jeanne couldn't help but laugh. Dunkerque heard her and laughed too.

A few more quiet partings, and she was ready. She cast off from Tunis, sailing with a hot sirocco wind blowing up from Africa- the dust landed on her ship and got in her hair, at least before the heavy rains came and dragged it all down into the black of the sea.


One day you will have to stand before the most clement judge, and it will all be stripped away, sloughing off like snakeskin. Your vainglories, your accomplishments, your wealth and allies and all you have gathered in this world will be left behind.

And there, an accounting will be made. What choices did you make, barring those ephemeral things? Did you choose justly?

What counts as a right choice for a wicked man? Would it do more harm, objectively, than a wicked choice by a righteous man? Perhaps it would. A street thug choosing some meager mercy might be more, in the eyes of God, than the most obscene act of philanthropy from someone raised to think it righteous.

Train yourself to make the right choice, no matter the circumstances. Every choice orients you- towards or away. And that is what matters, that is what will make the end as bitter as gall or sweet as honey.


Unfortunately, the weather did not feel any urgent need to improve its attitude. The wind whipped the sea into a fury, the rain fell in a deluge, and low-lying clouds completely choked out the sky with their blackness.

Where the weather had once been soothing, or at least bearable, it was completely insufferable now. The rain nearly fell sideways, the wind blew so fiercely, and the waves sent the ship bucking and heaving like a wild animal. The bilges ran as fast as she could make them, barely managing to force the water out faster than it came in and it certainly came in. It poured and seeped everywhere, circumventing any of her attempts to save her things.

On the bright side, she couldn't be found. She couldn't imagine anyone crazy enough to hunt her down in weather like this, even as she curved around Sicily and shot for the Adriatic. There was no one who would be looking for her, no one to impede her…

There was no one. When the time came for evening prayer, the only answer to supplications was the thunder's fierce retort, the brilliant light of lightning dimmed by clouds that hung heavy overhead. All the while the wind howled, shrieking outside and sending rain into every available nook and cranny.

(A great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before him, but the Lord was not in the wind.)

Jeanne had long since given up attempting to navigate from her deck, the wind and rain proving far too fierce. She hid out below, attempting to navigate with a compass and damp maps. Time seemed to stop existing in any real sense beyond her timepieces. The world rocked on its foundation, the noise never stopped, and sleep was both a temptation and a disaster in the making.

Early on in her journey, she passed Malta. She thought of Acts, of the ship Paul was in running aground on a sandbar. The fact that Paul was going off to Rome to get executed, not that he knew it.

She stopped thinking about it.


There was something remarkable about the storm, the way it raged without ever seeming to cease, never seeming escapable. Such a freak of nature would be, in a strange sense, miraculous. Well, perhaps it would seem more like it if she wasn't in the thick of it, riding it out in a ship that was being batted about like some toy.

It did not calm. It most certainly did not calm, but after the longest day and a half she had ever experienced, the storm grew just a little bit less aggressive. The superstructure still tilted under the heavy wind and the water still poured over the deck in a deluge, but it wasn't completely terrible. It was enough to give her the courage to climb up to the deck.

She leaned against the wind, nearly bowing as she tried to pick out anything in the darkness that seemed to have swallowed the ship whole. And, to her shock, she saw something. A little light, dancing and rocking, but inarguably there.

With the light to start with, she could just barely pick out more. It sat on a ship, although one that was being thrown around terribly. The ship was so small and meager… Jeanne moved to help them. It was the right thing to do.

Compared to that single light, the brilliance Jeanne brought to bear was enough to blind. It would be impossible to miss her- and sure enough, she could see the little ship working as close as it dared. How a ship that size had survived so long, she couldn't imagine. Perhaps the storm swept in and caught them- it would be a truly remarkable run of bad luck if Jeanne was following the course of the storm.

With work and liberal use of rope, the crew of that unfortunate vessel came aboard. It was one man, with greying hair and dark eyes- eyes which did widen in shock when they saw her and her soaked-through uniform.


The story came out, and it was kind of like she had expected. He had gone out and was completely blindsided by the storm, caught up in it before he could get back to shore. While he was certainly disappointed to have lost his catch, the man- named Davide- was just glad to be rescued at this point. Thankfully, he spoke workable French.

He gave her an idea of where he would like to be dropped off and promised to help her navigate the shore, but before that, they talked. And talked. There wasn't much else to do, what with most of her books dissolving. They talked professions- he a fisherman, she a shipgirl. He didn't seem to abhor her for being French, and although his retelling of history was… different from what she knew.

As if politics wasn't fun enough, they went from that to discussing religion.

"You're a mighty fine lady, Miss Jeanne- I don't see why you feel the need to rob yourself of it."

"Rob myself?"

"It can't ever be human love or kindness, no no no, it has to be exterior. We take our greatest triumphs- our charity, our love- and compartmentalize them. Give them away to nothing, a fiction to worship."

"Well, that presupposes humans are good, doesn't it?"

He guffawed. "And you'd say we aren't? Is it the outsider perspective?"

"I don't think I would need to be an outsider to see how bad things are right now."

"Fair enough." He sighed, "My boy is in the army."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Pretty rich, coming from a warship."

"Training ship, if we're splitting hairs." Jeanne pointed out.

"So you've helped prepare hundreds for death at sea?"

"I suppose I have."

After a moment of silence, he spoke again. "What's the theory, again? That shipgirls are made from mankind's desires and dreams."

"Made in your image, perhaps."

"Our hopes and dreams are weapons," he remarked. "How pitiable is that."

Jeanne let the faintest smirk show. "Maybe it points at something that needs fixing."


When the storm finally cleared- after a period of time that was supposedly seventy hours, if the clocks weren't lying to her- she dropped the man off a few miles from his village and then got to work staging her landing. After all, she was standing on a giant metallic peace of evidence- sixty five hundred tons, not that she was counting- and there was no excuse for a shipwreck quite like a storm.

It was a funny thought, the idea that she weathered the storm just to scuttle herself on purpose. She couldn't say for certain, but it was perfectly possible weather like that ruined a lot of ships that were closer to shore, dashing them against the unforgiving rocks. However, it was a better prospect than attempting to brave the Gulf of Taranto all by her lonesome.

So she took what food she could carry and left the ship behind. Left the other Jeanne behind, if you wanted to be melodramatic about it. Perhaps that was a good thing- it was Jeanne d'Arc the warship. That wasn't what she was here for.

It wasn't easy. Trying to avoid any garrisons that might find her suspicious meant hiking through some truly unfortunate backcountry- the Appennines produced some truly unfortunate foothills. And then there was the effort of the mind.

She thought of Richelieu, who had given Jeanne her mission in the first place. She thought of Jean Bart, who was apparently at the head of some pro-Axis splinter faction, if the rumors were true. She thought of her talks with Davide, and stumbled through the quiet valleys crushed by a loneliness she could never describe, a loneliness worse than those days in the storm.

Someone had to have beaten her to the punch, right? She was trundling along so slowly that anyone who cared enough would have already gone down and seen it. (Maybe they didn't care because it was just mundane. Completely useless.)

Sometimes the only reason she got up and kept moving was because she genuinely didn't know what she would do otherwise. Other times, the example of her illustrious namesake was enough to fuel her. It waxed and waned, came and went, but the destination never changed.

The monastery sat on the crest of a hill, whitewashed and red shingled, surrounded by careful, deliberate lines of trees. As she approached, she heard the faint tolling of bells. She had never seen it before, but somehow it felt like home.

Considering that they didn't really have any reason to keep watch, Jeanne managed to get quite close before she was noticed. She was 'intercepted' in the shade of a orange tree by a young monk, who honestly seemed to be paying more attention to the fruits than anything else.

He opened his mouth and spoke in a language she didn't recognize. Jeanne attempted to reply in French, but that didn't work either.

She tried a third option. "Can you introduce me to your abbot?"

Ecclesiastical Latin worked.

"Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin." The passphrase was biblical- the portent of doom given to Belshazzar, literal writing on the wall regarding his fate, and now it decided hers. (Well perhaps that was a touch dramatic. But only a touch.)

The abbot was a serious man, 'blessed' with a look that would strike fear into the heart of any unruly brother. Even Jeanne couldn't help but shiver a little under that gaze, but after a moment, he nodded.

"Richelieu sent you, then?"

"Yes. If I can do anything to protect the robe…"

He nodded. "We'll let you know. But there are a few issues we should handle first."


There was, well, a rather obvious reason why she couldn't integrate herself smoothly into the monastery, at least not directly. Still, a monastery didn't exactly exist in a vacuum- there were a few households and towns in the region, and one of those towns had a family willing to take her in. And so she went.

Honestly, some of the work wasn't too different from what she already knew. Painting, mending, repair? She had done it all back in training and did it in circumstances a bit more stressful than plain old domestic life. It was… blessedly simple. The shadow of conflict still stretched over them, that was inarguable, but it was a shock to her, to see life so far separated from war.

Still, her knowledge of warfare had some use, at least- she could provide some advice about civil defense. How best to treat injuries, and, as the war went on, what they could do to prepare for bombing. Her knowledge was imperfect, but it was better than nothing. She even provided advice about how to protect the relic, should worse come to worse.

It was during one of those talks that she got as close as she ever had so far. The Seamless Robe was kept in heavy metallic casing, itself kept in the basement of the abbey, between yellowing tomes and aging wines. She fretted over it, moved it from place to place, discussed it with the abbot… just about the only thing she didn't do was actually see it.

She refused to have it bandied about just for her sake. She didn't have some special right to it because she limped into town and volunteered to take care of it; anyone could do that, but not everyone would have the sway she did. (Did she deserve to see it, even then?)

Sometimes it felt like a joke. A cruiser working through a list of basic chores, running to fetch firewood or water for the neighbors, maybe fitting in some time teaching the children swordplay with their sticks or showing them how to start a fire. It wasn't combat. It wasn't what she was made to do. If she had stayed…

What if she had stayed? She had no doubt she would have fallen in with Richelieu's faction and would have almost certainly fired at one of the Vichy ships. Dunkerque! The same Dunkerque who clasped her hand and hoped Jeanne would be alright- the thought of trying to kill her almost made Jeanne sick.

War was unpleasant- except for La Galissoniere, maybe?- but you had to do it anyway. She wouldn't argue there wasn't an obvious right side to this war, a side whose crusade was noble, whose cause was just.

But… she wasn't quite sure if she could fight it. Perhaps it was a blessing that brought her here, an alignment of circumstances that let her fulfill her duty in a way that wouldn't tear her up.

Her namesake dealt in violence for the national defense. It was good, it was just. But Saints had left such things behind before, hadn't they? There was a small carving of Saint Francis in the village itself, a painting of him preaching to his birds in the monastery.

She wouldn't say she was without doubt, but she did like to think she was fulfilling Richelieu's mission. She also liked to think she provided something to that little town.


Tracking down Davide the fisherman and sending him a letter certainly wasn't easy- communications were rather limited, considering circumstances- but with the abbot pulling a few strings, it was possible. Jeanne had a letter sent out. She wasn't sure if she would get a response, but she sent it anyway.

His son had died- shot by a Corsican maquisard. A glorious martyr's death for Italia Irredenta. A price that would help pay to redeem Italy.

…What end goal was that? What dignity was there in a single disposable cell of some great fascist unit?

Man melted away, became nothing but fuel for the war machine, a blood-stained brick in the foundation of some terrible future.

There, there was your fascist man! Dead for a phantom that would never be.


This fic is, I think, a fairly transparent metaphor for a spiritual journey. The seamless garment is Biblical, although how we got several…? (I just realized I completely bumbled into a seamless garment ethic comparison at the end there.)

Otherwise, it draws inspiration from the treatment of the Shroud of Turin during WW2 and more generally. Other inspirations include CS Lewis, the blog Bad Catholic, maybe some of The Drama of Atheist Humanism, which was itself answering Feuerbach and Nietzsche…

This is another idea I've been kicking around for a while. Might do other characters? Just… not Implacable, probably. I dislike the horny nun thing. (A profession that literally has not wanting to be sexualizedas a vital part of it, and the secular world treats it like forbidden fruit fantasy I am going to castrate someone-)