1697 07-04 Queen of Hell USAAF B-17: Precision-bombing over Wilhelmshaven 1943-01-271698 07-04 Queen of Hell USAAF B-29: Over Tokyo 1945-03-10 (Operating Meetinghouse)1699 07-04 Blood Avenger RAF Avro Lancaster: Underlit by Hamburg firestorm, 11:59 p.m. 1943-07-27 (Operation Gamorrah)1700 07-04 Blood Avenger RAF Avro Lancaster: Kill marks in searchlight over Nuremburg 1945-01-02 before flak damage1701 07-04 Blood Avenger RAF Avro Lancaster: Repaired repainted departing for Dresden 1945-02-14
I think this series are largely plausible although 1699-1701 contain darker and more deadly-serious elements than those generally present in Allied nose art, which tended to express more hopefulness and playfulness, and tended toward the secular. The series also diverges from history in that most historic nose-art photos were taken on the runway, not in the air; whereas here the ratio is flipped because of its sense of immediacy, especially with 1699. Any online search for “world war two aircraft nose art” should produce a vast universe of historical examples. Subject-matter-wise, attractive women and violence were among the most common themes in nose art. Nose art was more common on bombers than fighters, and perhaps most common on US and UK aircraft; but fighters, Axis, and USSR air forces also occasionally included it. By contrast, the use across combatant air forces and aircraft types of “kill marks” (especially by fighters), “mission marks” (bombers), and “victory marks” (a more general term), was widespread.
In Europe, American bombing units usually focused on precision bombing of targets with identifiable relevance to the war effort. In Japan they began as a propaganda effort (the Mitchell raid), then when bombing began in earnest, on precision bombing at first, which yielded disappointing results, turning to mass incendiary raids later on. Whether the difference between the carpet-firebombing in Japan and the precision bombing in Germany was a result of military requirements (postwar studies concluded firebombing in Japan was militarily effective as intended because Japanese war production was decentralized, including by workers in their own homes), US racism, or the fact they had UK counterparts in Europe, is a matter of debate.
RAF bombers were mainly active in Europe. The RAF quickly concluded precision bombing was ineffective, adopting an Air Bombing Directive on 14 February, 1942 deciding candidly “To focus attacks on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular the industrial workers. In the case of Berlin harassing attacks to maintain fear of raids and to impose [Air Raid Precaution] measures.” Axis propaganda seems to make it clear the strategy encouraged rather than discouraged resistance, just as the German attacks during the blitz had done.
I hoped to capture in these images the darkness and evil of Channah; “Queen of Hell” seemed almost unavoidable and not far off historical examples. “Avenger of Blood” (Hebrew: גֹּאֵל הַדָּם, go’el ha-dam) appears in several Bible passages, including in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua. The Avenger of Blood, usually the closest male relative of a person who has been killed, has the duty of searching for and killing the murderer in turn, in accordance with the principle of lex talionis (the law of retribution).
1697 07-04 Queen of Hell USAAF B-17: Precision-bombing over Wilhelmshaven 1943-01-27—2025-07-13. Channah; old private photo. The date referenced was the first B-17 bombing mission with American crews of the war. This image seemed too close to a B-17 to put it convincingly over Japan, but I liked the image.
1698 07-04 Queen of Hell USAAF B-29: Over Tokyo 1945-03-10 (Operating Meetinghouse)— 2025-07-13. Channah; old private photo. The date referenced was the first mass incendiary “area bombing” raid against Tokyo, and one of the deadliest. The resulting devastation and civilian loss of life have been compared to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
1699 07-04 Blood Avenger RAF Avro Lancaster: Underlit by Hamburg firestorm, 11:59 p.m. 1943-07-27 (Operation Gamorrah)— 2025-07-13; Channah; old private photo. Choosing to name one of the most-relentless and deadly incendiary raids of the war after a Biblical holocaust, smacks of an operation more focused on bloody revenge than on military efficacy. The Old Testament nature and origin of the Blood Avenger, and its association with Judaism, seemed like a perfect complement to the British bombing strategy, especially in respect to Nazi Germany, which was neck-deep in the capital-H Holocaust by mid-1943. The picture of the evil Channah grinning down, underlit by the glowing light of mass murder, chilled me to the bone the instant it popped up on the AI.
1700 07-04 Blood Avenger RAF Avro Lancaster: Kill marks in searchlight over Nuremburg 1945-01-02 before flak damage—2025-07-13; n/a; old private photo. I initially viewed this image as a failed request for nose art, but I liked the overall composition and it occurred to me although the kill marks are less interesting visually, they have a profound psychological dimension, more so even than the nose art. I therefore decided to include it. The raid on Nuremburg was also a big one, and had the added significance of being directed against a spiritual seat of the Nazi party.
1701 07-04 Blood Avenger RAF Avro Lancaster: Repaired repainted departing for Dresden 1945-02-14—2025-07-13; Channah; old private photo. For the Blood Avenger images, I blended the typical Channah prompts with terms alluding to the Biblical lady in white and something akin to justice; and in terms evocative of the Biblical story of Lot. As mentioned, 1699 absolutely gave me chills; I liked this one a lot, too, although it raises more questions than it answers about her nature (singular or dual? Human or monster? Female or androgenous? Sane or mad?)
1702 07-04 Nurses are Heroes, Nurses are always needed1703 07-04 Batonnoir Sisters USO Camp Shows, Foxhole Circuit, Manila Philippines 1945-02-21 gig poster1718 07-04 For God and Country1725 07-04 London Life 1942 calendar (REGULAR EDITION)1726 07-04 London Life 1942 calendar (SPECIAL EDITION)
The images here are generally closely aligned with the general goals of the original project described in Subsection A, but become more creative and a bit speculative because they are not inspired by specific historical works. Instead, they are images of a type that were made or might have been made during the Second World War, and aren’t critical or subversive of the original subject matter or the party who made it, whether for good (the Allied images) or bad (the Axis image).
1702 07-04 Nurses are Heroes, Nurses are always needed—2025-07-09. Chastity, Hellinore, Penance; recruiting poster; compare https://www.pinterest.com/pin/376472850079087870/. I liked this as a way to use Penny and Chas in a broader and more favorable role than spies or wannabe men, and combine them with Hellinore, who in this incarnation would be a prominent person in British Society and/or a press sensation as a successful minister supporting the war effort with her sermons.
1703 07-04 Batonnoir Sisters USO Camp Shows, Foxhole Circuit, Manila Philippines 1945-02-21 gig poster—2025-07-10. Penance & Chastity; gig poster. I did not find any gig or other U.S.O. event announcement flyers or posters per se online; but it seems reasonable they likely would have had some. There were magazine ads and posters advertising the locations of U.S.O. clubs inside the United States, there were photos of specific U.S.O. events, and there were U.S.O. fundraising posters, which I considered when styling this image. Although the U.S.O. later adopted a more-or-less standard logo, there was no evidence of that in WW2; the initials would be displayed in different fonts, different colors, different positions, with different images, etc. across different images. But there were examples very similar to the U.S.O. initials here. This advertises a show in a part of Manila after the US had taken it back, but while the battle for the city and surrounds continued to rage on nearby. This is consistent with the accounts of U.S.O. shows very close to the front lines and the fact a number of U.S.O. entertainers were killed during the war while involved in entertaining the troops.
1718 07-04 For God and Country—2025-07-11. Hellinore; propaganda poster; compare http://vintageposterblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/ww2-odd.jpg and https://www.pinterest.com/pin/435652963923443375/. This is one that came a bit out of left field, although there are a handful of religious propaganda posters from the US and UK as shown at the links. Since Hellinore’s priesthood is/will be important to her in the story, I didn’t want to minimize it in this project; and I liked this image when it popped up.
1725 07-04 London Life 1942 calendar (REGULAR EDITION)—2025-07-12. Fang; pinup calendar. This is based on a thousand pinup calendars from the 1930s/40s/50s. Search for, e.g., “pinup calendars of the 1940s” for hundreds of hits online. The only rare characteristic of this calendar would be the ethnicity of the pinup. Although there are a few examples on line of 1930s and WW2 era Asian pinups, see, e.g., https://animalia-life.club/qa/pictures/asian-pin-up-art, I could not find any context on them including what countries they might have been printed in. Although, having some knowledge of the male condition, I find it hard to imagine there weren’t at least some underground images serving every interest and population around. Unlike later calendars, most of the 1940s calendars didn’t have different images for each month (Esquire and some magazines seemed to be the exception). Rather, a lot of them were intended as ads promoting largely male-oriented products to male customers, especially B2B sales in the automotive and electrical areas, etc. like the later SnapOn Tools calendars. The intent was for them to be hung on walls in the workplace as a permanent customer advertisement everybody (male) in the shop liked to pause and look at before, say, ordering a new electrical or automotive part. London Life was the title of an early (1920s-1940s) magazine that, although not really a fetish magazine, got into fetish areas especially in the reader letters section. It wound up being an inspiration for several of the pin-up and pulp artists and photographers of the 1940s-1960s. (Not to be confused with a later magazine with the same name that was published in the 1960s.)
1726 07-04 London Life 1942 calendar (SPECIAL EDITION)— 2025-07-12. Fang; pinup calendar. I couldn’t believe the AI gave me an image or two with Fang in black leather—and it even threw in what I’m going to assert is a whip. I had to use this one and decided to make it a special edition honoring the readers because of the readers’ role in the most fetishistic aspects of the magazine.
1688 07-04 Look for the deadly women: Partisans, Gonorrhea and Syphilis (ABRIDGED version)1689 07-04 Easy to get… Degenerate sluts and their diseases1690 07-04 Avoid Pollution–Use Protection Squad Salons (ABRIDGED version)1691 07-04 PARTY MEMBERS BEWARE! Loose talk to loose women can cost lives1692 07-04 TELL THEM NOTHING! They might be agents1932 07-04 Join the CCF-Women with a will to Win-Apply at any Army Recruiting Center1934 07-04 Join the CCF-Women with a will to Win-Apply at any Army Recruiting Center1946 07-04 Here are the “Liberators”! (ABRIDGED version)
These images arose out of a desire to show adult Penny and Chas acting in roles similar to their roles as operatives of Channah in ARP, namely, spies and saboteurs. Since I wanted them to be acting for the Western Allies, they would have to be portrayed as a risk warned against in Axis propaganda.
As the project expanded, the posters became a way to comment on the narrow roles Axis ideologies prescribed for women—and the hypocrisy shown, especially as the war wore on, in their treatment and use of women. Even the Nazis, from the very start, when faced with defiance by some strong women, celebrated them for their achievements in areas outside the home. Notable examples (listed not to apologize for them, but to criticize fascist ideology) include one of the most-important propagandists on behalf of the Nazi regime, Leni Riefenstahl; women who used their celebrity in nontraditional roles to support the Nazis such as Hanna Reitsch; and Yoshiko Kawashima (identified in images 1932 and 1934 by her Chinese name, Jin Bihui), a tragic figure victimized from a young age and deeply conflicted about her own sexual and ethnic identity who burned a fiercely unconventional arc through the Japanese occupation of China ending in her execution for treason.
By the end of the war, hundreds of thousands of German women had been trained in military schools and were serving for all intents and purposes as soldiers of the regime, in dangerous battlefield jobs, most of them performing air-defense and fire-fighting missions during air raids while Allied bombs were falling all around them and Allied fighters, virtually unchallenged in the air, could focus on suppressing air defense. Yet I found only one example of a recruitment poster showing a woman wearing a helmet, and only a couple with women in uniform, at a time when uniforms were ubiquitous in German society, worn by civil servants and military personnel alike in a fully-mobilized economy.
Their own country refused to call them soldiers, asserting that they were merely civilian “helpers,” despite the fact that by the end of the war, their formations and positions appeared on Wehrmacht organizational charts and their uniforms displayed military, or more-sinister (i.e., SS), insignia. Which points to a complication in understanding their position in Nazi society: After the war, German men and women alike, especially those “helping” the SS, had every incentive to, and in fact fell all over themselves to, deny women had been in the SS (which was declared a criminal organization) or the military (which was deeply implicated in crimes of the regime).
Nonetheless, it seems clear that the Nazis were unwilling to admit they needed women’s help outside the home as well as inside it, to fight their war; or even that women were capable of doing the jobs they were actively recruited, and eventually drafted, to perform (and that they did, in fact, perform), because to do so would have meant admitting shortcomings in their own ideologies and propaganda. There is much less information available, at least in English, or that can be found using English-language searches, about Nazi Germany than Fascist Italy, or even more, Imperial Japan. Accessible portrayals of women in Japanese wartime propaganda were few and far between, and those I did find weren’t accompanied by text I could cut and paste into Google Translate, or retype on my keyboard. But totalitarian regimes and newly-emergent industrial economies tend to be socially conservative, and what I was able to find suggested very conservative and limited roles were prescribed for women.
Axis ideology did not allow women to be heroic figures. It did not even allow them to be dangerous, nefarious, or even sexualized ones. Thus, even in propaganda reminding people not to discuss or reveal sensitive military information, which were ubiquitous across all combatants, Axis posters rarely identified nefarious or seductive women as the threat.
Posters of the Western Allies (Soviet patterns sometimes allowed or required women to be heroic but didn’t offer them much agency or sexuality) were another matter. If anything, as suggested already in relation to Allied Recruitment posters (subsection 07-04-F), women were often portrayed as conniving, traitorous, diseased sluts constituting a threat to the war effort and to decent servicemen. Women featured prominently as antagonists in Western Allied campaigns warning against loose talk; and almost inevitably, were the primary villains in campaigns warning against venereal disease. These campaigns were prominent and widespread, with some reason; venereal disease had become a significant source of manpower shortages in World War One, and the US in particular from the very start went to war with a vengeance against VD. The results, helped by medical improvements, were notable: infections among US servicemen in World War Two were possibly as low as 3% of those a generation before when the total number of mobilized men had been lower. But to a significant extent, the campaigns focused not on the logic and mathematics of infection, or on the diseases themselves, but on the (mainly female) agents of transmission.
For purposes of these images, I used propaganda posters produced by the Western Allies as the starting points for made-up Axis ones that the Axis powers would have been unlikely to produce.
1688 07-04 Look for the deadly women: Partisans, Gonorrhea and Syphilis (ABRIDGED version)—UNABRIDGED VERSION INCLUDING FASCIST IMAGERY AVAILABLE AT PATREON.COM/THEREMAINDERMAN. 2025-06-17; Penance & Chastity; propaganda poster; compare numerous examples at https://cvltnation.com/crazy-venereal-disease-posters-from-wwii/. Translation (German to English): Suchen Sie nach den tödlichen Frauen: Partisanen, Gonorrhoe und Syphilis Look for the deadly women: Partisans, Gonorrhea and Syphilis. The linkage between “good-time girls,” “loose women,” “prostitutes,” “pick-ups,” “bags of trouble,” etc., and diseases in numerous posters was thoroughly spelled out for slower servicemembers. The broadest categorization, and the closest to bluntly suggesting all women are whores, that I saw, which also offered some spurious pseudo-scientific statistics, was the poster cautioning “98% of procurable women have venereal disease.” Alternatively, that could be interpreted as insulting servicemen, e.g.: “98% of the women available to losers like you are diseased….” An implication more narrowly targeted against women suggested “Amateurs” are just as dangerous as prostitutes. I included partisans because actual German posters addressed them as menaces, including at least one instance where as I recall, they portrayed a female as a partisan. I originally made the unabridged version thinking nothing of it, then realized it could create a risk of being removed and had nothing really to replace it.
1689 07-04 Easy to get… Degenerate sluts and their diseases—2025-06-18; Penance & Chastity; propaganda poster; compare https://artpictures.club/autumn-2023.html specifically, and other posters generally, at https://cvltnation.com/crazy-venereal-disease-posters-from-wwii/. Translation (German to English): Leicht zu bekommen: Degenerierte Schlampen und ihre Krankheiten Easy to get… Degenerate sluts and their diseases. There were at least two versions of this poster during World War Two. The comparison of prostitutes to their diseases was made visually by the original images in both versions. I just spelled out the comparison between human beings, viruses, and bacteria more explicitly here.
1690 07-04 Avoid Pollution–Use Protection Squad Salons (ABRIDGED version)—UNABRIDGED VERSION INCLUDING FASCIST IMAGERY AVAILABLE AT PATREON.COM/THEREMAINDERMAN. 2025-06-19; Chastity & Penance; advertisement; Translation (German to English): Vermeiden Sie Umweltverschmutzung – nutzen Sie die Schutzstaffel der Salons Avoid Pollution–Use Protection Squad Salons. There is no specific historical example behind this poster; the anti-VD advertising campaign was Allied, and the Allies (to my knowledge) didn’t operate any brothels like the SS, Wehrmacht, and Imperial Japanese Army (although the Japanese administration under American occupation after the war did operate official brothels for a time). The address is the actual address of Salon Kitty, a high-end brothel that was taken over by the Sicherheitsdienst (SS Security Service) for spying on Germans and foreigners of interest (and is actually not representative of the official, overt forced-labor brothels run for German military, SS, and kapo personnel since it was a clandestine operation). The phone number in the abridged version is that of the Reichsführer-SS’s (Himmler’s) office according to the 1941 Berlin phone book (only a limited number of entries from it were available and legible online).
1691 07-04 PARTY MEMBERS BEWARE! Loose talk to loose women can cost lives—2025-06-20; Chastity, Penance; motivational poster; compare https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/original-john-falter-wwii-poster-458626456, for the Allied anti-loose-talk poster that was the departure point design- and slogan-wise. More broadly, see the Allied posters warning about loose women at https://cvltnation.com/crazy-venereal-disease-posters-from-wwii/ and https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/25/health/wwii-vd-posters-penis-propaganda/index.html, further discussed above. Translation (German to English): Parteimitglieder Aufgepasst (vorsicht)! Party members, pay attention (beware)!; Unanständige(s) Gerede (Gespräche) mit unanständigen Frauen kann (können) Leben kosten Indecent (loose) talk with indecent (loose) women can cost lives. The original is targeted at sailors but because of challenges with the AI (discussed elsewhere), this one is targeted at a category of people who theoretically could be in civilian clothes since I could not generate any suitable images for this with uniformed Germans. Google changed translations on me when I double-checked before publication from German back to English; the translations shown are based on the final re-check with variations to illustrate how words varied based on the original English and English translations of the later German.
1692 07-04 TELL THEM NOTHING! They might be agents—2025-06-21; Chastity, Penance; motivational poster; compare https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/american-propaganda-posters-world-war-two/. Translation (German to English): Sag ihnen nichts! Tell them nothing!; Sie könnten Agenten sein They might be agents. I counted it as a win that I was able to get the girls on their stomachs. The AI really does not like being told how to position people, especially women. I really like the faces and expressions here, which seem at once girlish and sinister. Unlike 1945, which I was able to double-check with an Italian pronoun guide online, I didn’t find a way online to double-check whether the German would be different for a female vs a male or mixed “them”; any input on this point would be appreciated.
1932 & 1934 07-04 Join the CCF-Women with a will to Win-Apply at any Army Recruiting Centre—UNABRIDGED GERMAN COUNTERPART INCLUDING FASCIST IMAGERY AVAILABLE AT PATREON.COM/THEREMAINDERMAN. 2025-06-22; Fang; recruiting poster; compare: https://www.alamy.com/vintage-ww2-recruitment-poster-with-female-ats-member-in-uniform-union-jack-flag-flies-behind-women-with-a-will-to-win!-join-the-ats-apply-at-any-army-recruiting-centre-1939-1945-image342804140.html?imageid=16439DED-FF10-4602-991A-74F85C0BBF85&p=66052&pn=1&searchId=eecbd4edf63c33347e7f7b028a6f8218&searchtype=0; Translation (Mandarin to English) 有必勝意志的女性！ Women with a will to Win!; 般的 General Jin Bihui; 加入 Join the; 反叛亂騎兵部隊 counterinsurgency cavalry force; 向任何陸軍招募中心提出申請 Apply at any Army Recruiting Center. Any feedback on the technical aspects of this poster would be much appreciated. The poster is in Chinese but I’m not even sure, if there had been such a recruiting poster, whether the proper language would have been Chinese, Manchu, or even Japanese. The “counterinsurgency cavalry force” is the irregular formation raised by the Qing dynasty princess who was adopted (abused) and raised in Japan and later became associated with the Manchukuo puppet regime (it is her photograph above her name, Jin Bihui, in a Manchukuo army uniform). I am not sure if the force had an official name; or if it did, whether it was actually that, or if “counterinsurgency cavalry force” is a descriptive reference. Being that it was a cavalry force and she was a Manchu, perhaps the most obvious pool for her to recruit from would have been Manchus. By the time of World War II, however, I understand Manchuria had been heavily Sinicized. Because the poster is in Chinese I used her Chinese name, Jin Bihui. I’m pretty sure, but not entirely, that I have the correct Chinese-character transliteration of that name; but in addition to having formatting issues with it, and the lingering uncertainty, I did hope by including one bit of Latinized text with the only specific name I included in the poster (it doesn’t even use the word “Manchukuo” in the text) that people who didn’t notice this description could find relevant historical information about the poster online. I made two versions, one for the year the puppet regime was created and the other for the year it was renamed Manchukuo and made nominally imperial, because what can I say: I like Fang in black leather. These posters came about because, having seen Channah in leather and thinking of poster 1933, it seemed only right that the leather-armor-clad Fang should have a poster of her own on the evil side of the fence.
1946 07-04 Here are the “Liberators”! (ABRIDGED version)—UNABRIDGED AND BONUS VERSIONS INCLUDING FASCIST IMAGERY AVAILABLE AT PATREON.COM/THEREMAINDERMAN. 2025-06-23; Miryam, Rivqah, Lancelot; propaganda poster; compare https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-italian-world-war-ii-poster-here-are-the-liberators%60-shows-the-statue-57365951.html. Translation (Italian to English): Ecco I “Liberatori”! Here are the “Liberators”! The original poster chilled me, partly because it reminded me of the Norwegian fascist poster (widely used by the Germans) “Liberators,” and partly on its own account, and its description by one source online as an “angel of death” version of the Statue of Liberty. As an American, it creeps me out to see American icons toppled and reversed that way, especially in this day and age; and especially when—by alluding to Allied bombing campaigns in the Italian example, and half-a-dozen ways in the “Liberators” poster, they manage to capture a kernel of truth about America’s own moral challenges. In some ways, I imagine this to be the worst nightmare within the ideology of Axis propaganda because it depicts women from fascist countries not just as victims (as in poster 1945), but as collaborating or cooperating with the Allied conquerors, perhaps even with a bold spirit of determination to survive in difficult circumstances where the roles assigned to them by Axis ideologies are no longer enforced, and the men they were supposed to rely on for protection have been defeated in a war of their own making. Of course, there were German and Italian prostitutes during the WW2 era; but the German and Japanese policy of forced-labor brothels very much reinforced and followed their racist ideologies by making women from occupied countries service their troops. Racially-ambiguous Lancelot allows but does not require the viewer to add a racial dimension to the poster, although as noted with respect to 1945, doing so would be entirely consistent with Italian wartime propaganda.
1685 07-04 We Can Do It!1686 07-04 LIFE America’s Secret Weapon1687 07-04 Young England Wants to Help1737 07-04 Help China! China Is Helping Us1736 07-04 On Our Side: The Chinese Fighter1738 07-04 This woman is your FRIEND–She fights for FREEDOM1781 07-04 Keep fit to fight1782 07-04 Cadet Nurse: The Girl with a Future1935 07-04 Join the ATS-Women with a will to Win-Apply at any Army Recruiting Centre (UK black version)1936 07-04 Join the ATS-Women with a will to Win-Apply at any Army Recruiting Centre (UK Union Jack version)1945 07-04 Defend them, they could be your mothers, your wives, your sisters, your daughters (abridged version)
The images in this first subset (07-04-A) of the Defend the Constitution! (07-04) project more-or-less represent what I originally set out to do with it: Place the characters from ARP into the context of actual, specific historical propaganda posters from World War Two in a way that both related to their role in ARP, and reflected the original character and intent of the propaganda posters they were based on. Hopefully there is plenty of personality in these images, but I don’t think they contain much tongue-in-cheek mockery of the original images or of the streams of intellectual thought they represented. In a couple of images (1736 & 1738), women are portrayed where women would probably have been outside the contemplation of the original poster makers; but overall, the messages here are generally consistent with the messages in the original posters, whether for good (the Allied posters) or bad (the Axis poster); and the liberties taken in using female characters don’t undermine or attack the source material per se.
1685 07-04 We Can Do It!—2025-06-02; Chava; motivational poster (J. Howard Miller 1943); compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Can_Do_It! This poster actually became better-known as a result of a postwar revival of interest, than it was during the war. I liked its association with female empowerment, and the absence of any traditionalist trappings trying to shoehorn women supporting the war effort into an unequal or subordinate role to men. It’s just a matter-of-fact call to women, encouraging them and asking for their help and support. Chava seemed the obvious candidate for this poster as a physically-strong foundry worker in her own right.
1686 07-04 LIFE America’s Secret Weapon—2025-06-02; Chava; magazine cover (Norman Rockwell 1943); compare https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2013/07/rosie-the-riveter/. Notes: Deliberately switched magazines and style because I think of Life as iconic for WW2 images and I wasn’t interested in a Norman Rockwell vibe per se. Life had a few color covers although it was very rare in that era; but I liked Chava’s red color too much to make it B&W. As with 1685, I like the fact Rosie the Riveter is taken on her own terms without trying to limit her by proscribing her role or what it might mean; and knew instantly this one was right for Chava. Here we see an everyday moment from her life, that in no way distinguishes her from men in a stereotyping way.
1687 07-04 Young England Wants to Help—2025-06-03; Young Hellinore, Young Pentecost; motivational poster (F.T. Chapman c. 1939-1941); compare: https://go-leasing24.info/practice-areas/bergen-county-dyfs-lawyers/#google_vignette. Based on a poster from a US-based charity supporting Britain in the early years of World War Two urging American children to help in supporting Britain. I changed it to English supporting Dutch because the two characters are English, the English supported the Dutch in WW2, and in the lifetime of the two characters, the English supported the Dutch revolt against the Spanish. Although I generally disfavor children being encouraged to participate in warfare, e.g., being recruited for underage units like the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend, excluding them from the sense of community encouraged in wartime would be alienating and devaluing. I think this poster suggests an appropriate route for helping without infantilizing them or emphasizing their undeniable role as particular victims of war.
1736 07-04 On Our Side: The Chinese Fighter—2025-06-04; Fang; educational poster (1944); compare: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/side-wwii-propaganda-posters-russia-1924405148. As indicated at the provided link, this is one of at least four posters in the “On Our Side” series along with British, French, and Russian counterparts. Like 1738, the original seemed to be part of a broader effort to educate Americans about the geography and nationalities involved in the war by explaining who our allies were. This image became a way to use one of the pilot images of Fang I really loved, despite the difficulties of getting accurate insignia on the plane itself (discussed elsewhere). In the original series of images, the flags of each nation were separate from the images with people; and the angle of the image made it plausible no insignia would be visible on the plane.
1738 07-04 This woman is your FRIEND–She fights for FREEDOM—2025-06-04; Hong; educational poster; compare https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/This-Man-is-Your-Friend-Chinese-1940s-WW2-Poster-by-Lueshis/102507112.LVTDI. I confess, when I first saw the original image on which this one is based, I took it as being of a piece with the wartime Life magazine article indistinguishable from phrenology or Aryan race theory, trying to explain how American readers could tell a Japanese person from a Chinese one just by looking at them. However, like 1736, this was one of a whole series of posters portraying European and Asian allies on an equal footing, presumably as part of an effort to educate Americans about who our allies were. This series was a bit bland artistically, but of the limited historically-authentic options available for portraying Asian characters positively on Allied propaganda, I decided to take it. Handily, the bar at the bottom of the poster also provided an elevated surface for Hong’s left boot without including any background from the underlying image, which would have been inconsistent with the original composition. Like many posters of the time, human figures were isolated from their original backgrounds before being included in posters.
1737 07-04 Help China! China Is Helping Us—2025-06-05; Hong; fundraising poster (James Montgomery Flagg c 1940-1942); compare: https://digitalcollections.hclib.org/digital/collection/p17208coll3/id/1014. This (like 1687) represents one of the numerous US wartime fundraising campaigns for various allied causes. United China Relief (“UCR”) brought together seven different China-relief organizations in the US dating to the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, and was later amalgamated with others into an umbrella organization that was an antecedent of the United Way. Given the frustrating difficulty with placing Hong and Fang into historically accurate contexts using the AI discussed elsewhere, I thought about making them actresses in movie posters, but the convention of the time in the US was to have white actors portray significant roles regardless of the character’s putative nationality; and in an effort to avoid attracting more Japanese attention than necessary (and perhaps to keep the left-leaning Chinese film industry more generally apolitical), the Nationalist Chinese movie industry was discouraged from overtly portraying warfare against the Japanese. Because the UCR’s purpose was to raise money for China, UCR images tended to portray the Chinese as sympathetic victims as well as fighters; but the image on which this one was based managed to fully convey the fighting spirit of the Chinese, in a way that to me (from the determined expression on the Chinese mother’s face and the soldier marching instead of recuperating despite being injured and not-quite-uniformed) suggested behind-the-scenes partisan resistance—which is how I imagined Hong participating in the war effort, sending radio reports on Japanese troop movements back to the Chinese army.
1781 07-04 Keep fit to fight—2025-06-06; Lancelot; motivational poster; compare https://www.dpvintageposters.com/posters/war-citizenship-public-causes/world-war-ii/american/heath-and-welfare/keep-fit-to-fight-original-american-wwii-air-force-physical-fitness-poster-no-3_9324. I wanted to find an appropriate but not boring or stereotyped platform for introducing Lancelot, perhaps the most traditionally male hero character likely to appear in ARP; and I decided for symmetry, to avoid diminishing women by comparison given my clearly-revealed preference for pinup, cheesecake, and similar depictions of women, that all of his appearances in this series had to have an aspect of beefcake: The more-unrealistic-while-pretending-to-be-realistic, the better. There are a number of US wartime posters of men that seem to modern eyes, at least, to have an erotic undertone, especially recruitment posters which from context strongly suggest that undertone is homoerotic. There was a fantastically unexpected US poster emphasizing hygiene depicting three hunky soldiers showering naked at a jungle encampment. But unfortunately, the AI wouldn’t let me even get close to doing it justice. This image was as close as I could get to that vibe, and I think it gets the job done.
1782 07-04 Cadet Nurse: The Girl with a Future—2025-06-07; Kadidia; recruitment poster; compare:
https://goldenageposters.com/products/1944-be-a-cadet-nurse-the-girl-with-a-future-jon-whitcomb-wwii-full-size?variant=44536213242136. This poster introduces Kadidia, in the form of the uniformed, determined nurse to the left, but provides only minimal information about who she is or what she represents. (More fulsome introduction of Kadidia to follow in subsections B, D, and F.). The reason for including this poster, despite its fairly uninteresting composition is really because, in the first phase of this project, when I was trying to be very true to historical antecedents, I was surprised by the near-total absence of minorities from any of the US World-War-Two posters I found online. This is notably in contrast not only to images from later US wars, but to earlier ones—at least in World War One and the Civil War, there was a clear and direct appeal to blacks to support the war effort. (Late in my research, after finishing this image, I came across a “Together We Win” image showing people of color fighting alongside a white soldier and I’ve kept that in case the reception for these posters is warm enough to persuade me to do another set.). I also found a US image portraying Japanese-Americans quietly cooperating in their own segregation and detention; and a couple of British images with minorities, one analogous to the US “Together We Win” poster, and another intended to recruit blacks from British colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa. Apparently before it was ever used, however, the British decided not to recruit black soldiers because they didn’t want to arm and train them given the anti-colonial sentiments gaining traction within the Empire. I would categorize the original of the Cadet Nurse poster as ambivalent on the issue of race; and did not find any online commentary to clarify the artist’s or the program’s intentions. The idea they could be black women is supported by the fact the Cadet Nurse program, apparently quite rarely for wartime government programs, was amended at the insistence of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to prevent racial discrimination, eventually recruiting more than 3,000 minorities including even Japanese-American women recruited from the US relocation (essentially concentration, although not as deadly as the Axis variety) camps.
1935 & 1936 07-04 Join the ATS-Women with a will to Win-Apply at any Army Recruiting Centre (UK black & Union Jack versions)—2025-06-08; Hellinore; propaganda poster; compare: https://www.alamy.com/vintage-ww2-recruitment-poster-with-female-ats-member-in-uniform-union-jack-flag-flies-behind-women-with-a-will-to-win!-join-the-ats-apply-at-any-army-recruiting-centre-1939-1945-image342804140.html?imageid=16439DED-FF10-4602-991A-74F85C0BBF85&p=66052&pn=1&searchId=eecbd4edf63c33347e7f7b028a6f8218&searchtype=0. I was thrilled to find a poster so emphatically directed towards independent female patriotism and personality, showing an assertive woman doing something other than supporting a man or looking for a man, that didn’t go out of its way to allude to traditional women’s roles. [1936 only: It was also a lot of fun pushing the adult-Hellinore in-your-face-bling-priestess image to yet another level, like a professional wrestler and valet rolled into one, in this and a couple of subsequent posters combining religious fervor with patriotism.]
1945 07-04 Defend them, they could be your mothers, your wives, your sisters, your daughters (abridged & unabridged versions)—Explicit version containing fascist imagery at 07-04[X] Defend them, they could be your mothers, your wives, your sisters, your daughters at Patreon.com/TheRemainderman. 2025-06-09; Penance & Chastity; propaganda poster (1944); compare: https://history.blog.fordham.edu/?p=257. Translation (English to Italian): Defend [all-female] them! Difendile!; They could be your mothers, your wives, your sisters, your daughters Potrebbero essere le tue madri, le tue mogli, le tue sorelle, le tue figlie. The original of this poster depicts a rape in progress, more explicitly than I could imply with AI or upload to DA without worrying about being kicked off again; but the image of the enemy menacing women is not at all uncommon in the period. The enemy is represented by a black man in the original, with obvious racist overtones. Nothing subtle or nuanced about the message there. I comment further on the racial issue in 1946; for historical accuracy, I was reluctant to shy away from the racist component; but in addition to worrying about the very real risk of the image being taken offline, and feeling a bit queasy myself about actually implementing the poster, racism among humans is not an overt theme of the first volume of ARP. Ultimately, I decided to execute it this way because it focuses more on the vulnerability and suffering of the women and thus the gender aspect of the underlying poster, which is more relevant to the themes and characters in the first volume of ARP.
1558 06-51 Raise the red flag! NO QUARTER!!!^1559 06-51 Murder the prisoners. Every. Single. One.^1560 06-51 My treacherous hand has drawn my own blood!^1561 06-51 My sword and honor are stained by the blood I have drawn^
She shook her head, horrified and awed by her own evil. “I did that.” And then, again: “I did that.” There was a long silence, Channah lost in her thoughts, the girls too shocked and appalled and even sympathetic to who she had become now, all at once, to say anything.
Finally, she resumed, still out wherever her thoughts were: “I’ve done terrible things.” Then, surprisingly, she laughed fondly, and explained: “Húanglóng. It was Húanglóng. We were allies, considering the more permanent connection between our two Courts that eventually manifested in our marriage, and already nearly as close to one another as I am to my Duchesses and Dukes. He asked me what it accomplished, and whether it wouldn’t be better to try and teach them better, rather than dispatching them to… wherever they go. Went.”
They knew these were words she had not spoken to many humans in her entire long life, if any. And they waited silently, almost breathlessly, so she could continue. “When I was cut off from Heaven… I think I remember a time I had more…” she frowned, searching for the word. “Compassion. Or maybe, kindness… Or…”
“Love?” Penny whispered, and she looked down at him, gratefully and with surprise.
“Yesss…” she hissed, unconsciously imitating his whisper, before she went back to wherever she had been. “Love,” she nodded wonderingly, mulling it over in her own mind. “I think I still feel love… some… I love myself. I love my sisters and brothers.” She looked down at them. “And I’m starting to fall in love with you. I’m sure of it. There are a few humans I can love, and you… feel that way to me. It’s one of the reasons I married you. But there’s definitely something—” she pinched her lips together, hard, sounding hoarse: “Something I’ve lost. Something that made me… less vindictive. Less proud. Less… abandoned. I didn’t act this way. Oh, I acted rashly, and even—even with malice.” She swallowed.
“Being the Queen… everyone looks to me. At first, I thought: Obviously I should be the Queen. I’m the best! The most-powerful, the most-beautiful, the most-caring—at least in hell—the most-natural leader; and of course I want to be the Queen. I should be put first! I deserve to be put first! But the others can’t imagine, and I daren’t show them, the burdens. Any weakness at all. Either for my own sake, lest they sense vulnerability and try to take advantage of me… or for their sake, lest they panic that their leader has the same doubts they do.”
“Of course, Heaven is a cypher to me. As is the Lord. That… soul, that warm connection to knowledge of what is right and good, is gone. But I can still think, and feel, and breathe. On Earth, are Queens and Kings not chosen by the Lord? And is it any different in hell? Some demons have speculated, even argued before the Conclave, that we were banished to Hell because Heaven lacked the power to destroy us completely. But most of us who felt—the force, the sheer power,” she gasped at the ancient memory, shaking her head sadly, “of what was done to us that day… have no doubt we could have been extinguished as easily as crushing an ant underfoot.”
Tears came to her eyes again. “Was it mercy? Was it supposed to be mercy, or an even-worse punishment than death, to be banished here?!” She came back to them, to their eyes. “If I’m right, and we were deliberately spared… then why should I, like a Queen or King among humans, be divinely selected? If the Lord sought fit to preserve Hell, is it not His? Along with its hierarchy?”
The she pursed her lips, and continued more quietly: “To love humans… is so rare for me. It feels almost… dirty. That, most of all, if it happens… you can never tell anyone that I love you. You cannot tell anyone I’m even thinking I could love you, or talking about it. Do you understand?”
They nodded breathlessly, responding to her urgency. “Because we hate humans. Some of us think that was the reason for our fall—our jealousy at humans, and the love they enjoyed—still enjoy! You can’t imagine the fury we feel—to see humans are still loved, despite their vile evil! They’re—you’re—worse than us, you know? Because you’re capable of better. You have full access to Heaven—perhaps, to love—if you only want it enough. Every soul that ends in hell deserves to be there a thousandfold. Because they had a choice!”
“Didn’t you?” Penny asked, looking as shocked as Chas at the words that had come out of her mouth.
“You’re impossible!” She managed to look incensed, amused, and rueful all at once, before sinking back into something closer to sad acceptance. She whispered: “Maybe.” She shook her head. “Once. I just… can’t… quite remember. If you can be my apostle and awaken me, by all means—do so, little priest.”
“I’m not a priest,” she blushed. “I’m ordained.” Her face fell. “Was ordained. But I’m still a student. I’ve never held an appointment.”
“You’re still ordained, darling,” Channah assured her. “You think a succubus can’t feel that? Practically see it?” She focused in intently on Penny, as if urgently trying to reach him. “Darling Penny, to return to your earlier question, I’ll never ask you to battle the Catholic Church if your conscience moves you to remain a part of it. I promise. I do need educated servants, and I have many of them. But if I wanted you two,” she admitted Chas back into the discussion with her eyes, “and your sisters, to fight the Church, we would have made sure you understood why you were going to school all of those years. We let you go to grammar school and you, Penny, to University, because we wanted to let you choose your own path. Because you can’t serve your purpose to Us if you can’t think and feel for yourself. You two girls are delicate instruments, useless to us if we try to force you to point, or measure, or report what we want to hear.”
“Why would the Lord allow me—” Penny began.
“You ask me about His purposes?” She laughed caustically. “What it means, why you remain sacred and set apart—is a discussion for another day. Probably with another person. Maybe with your confessor, if he can really be trusted. But not with me—” her voice almost broke again “—because I don’t know the why of it. Only the fact of it. You have not lost your grace, Penny. I don’t know why. But I think it must be because, as I told you—as long as you live, you are free to make your own choices. There are always choices, and they always have consequences. But on Earth, it is never too late to change your mind. And I’m sure—that is, I think—it’s you’re your mind and heart that matter to Heaven, that Heaven judges; not that of Popes or Bishops. Not in relation to you, anyway. Yes, there is a church in this Earthly world, with priests, with some influence, maybe even power, if you want to call it that. But Heaven, not Earth nor anything or anyone in it, gives and withdraws grace. The human rituals and ceremonies are, at best, an assent, or perhaps a way of communicating with the Lord what His human servants think is in service to Him.” She shrugged, and finished in a small voice: “I think. I just don’t know.”
1555 06-50 A pain that still sears after 6,000 years^1556 06-50 Thank you for saving us, Super-Succubus!^1557 06-50 D.A.R.E.-Dragon saving kids from the scourge of drug-addled zombies!^
“On the other hand, the war among thedemons is fought in Hell, and on Earth, and it is a war of genocide. The Lord may abide abominations like the Devils and Zombies to exist, but I will not. Any more than they would willingly suffer the Succubae to exist. We seek to exterminate the Devils and Zombies, as surely as they would exterminate the Succubae and the Vampires—and our allies, the Dragons—if they could.”
“This is a war of survival and preservation! Dear Chas, dear Penny, we must win our war against the Devils and Zombies, or they will wipe us out. They would eradicate all my sisters and brothers—and all our human operatives, including you both—in a heartbeat. They would save me for last, and torture me at their leisure until they were ready to dispose of me. It’s terribly unfair, but the Abominables—the Devils and Zombies—have made it clear in the past that they will attack and kill the youngest, the most-innocent, the most-vulnerable of my children just to spite me if they can! Can you imagine?! Children who will never be operatives, orphans, the unwanted, and the hunted—people I rescue! Just out of loathing and hate. They’re… they’re not even animals! MY children!” She shook her head, leaving no doubt in the girls’ minds that she was genuinely horrified and enraged by their conduct. “But it’s even broader than us individually. We fight for beauty… passion, and love! Art! The pleasures and lovely things in this world, and even those few we may find in hell. The vampires, for the vibrancy of life itself! And the dragons… well, honestly, they’re a little lazy. But generally mild-mannered, if you leave them alone; and they really do tend to leave others alone, as long as they can get what they need to survive.” She laughed, shaking her head. “My husband—First-Husband to you—Húanglóng, King of the Dragons, the indolent sod, doesn’t have a spiteful bone in his body.”
“Compared to our real war, our unholy war, the contest against Heaven is a distant second front: we need souls to fill our ranks, and to deprive our enemies. But it’s less a war, more like… the Border Reivers: English raiding into Scotland, Scots raiding into England, sometimes Reivers raiding without even bothering to cross the line. But it’s all about pillaging the border lands—in our case, Earth. Hell couldn’t breach Heaven if it tried. And Heaven created the border itself, because it doesn’t want hell. Or any of its denizens. I’ve already asked you to puzzle on that. I cannot possibly give you the answer, because I don’t understand Heaven. My soul has been banished from it, and all knowledge and feelings of and from it. When we were cut off—” she shook her head, her voice dropping to a whisper and breaking: “When we separated…” She pressed her lips together, actual tears springing into her eyes, unable to continue for a moment, her face tight and passionate.
“Oh, Domina!” her girls cried in unison and squeezed her tightly and warmly, holding her tightly as her lip quivered and, with a shake of her head, she gave up and allowed herself to cry, holding them right back, hearing them sob sympathetically for her.
Channah’s Confession
“I think you’re ready. I think I’m ready.” Her face became seriously thoughtful, and she squeezed them both, pulling their heads together on her breasts, each girl straddling one of her legs so she could see both of them easily, her eyes flicking back and forth without straying from them, so they both remained intimately enraptured by her gaze and her words, feeling an intimacy they may never have felt in their lives, and certainly not since their mothers’ presence. In a second of shared semi-comedy, all the more intimate because it intervened in the midst of such intimacy, both girls winced and tugged up on their little cages so they rested on her thighs instead of pinching and pressing between them all. Even with that adjustment, the girls were not quite comfortable—they were almost Channah’s size and the position they were put in was not only intimate with her, but cramped and awkward. And somehow, that was right; a way for them to demonstrate their devotion and subservience, their lesserness and the slightly pathetic quality of the uneven yet affectionate relationship between them, even in her most-intimate moments and embrace.
“I want to tell you—I want to admit to you—who I am. Something I have not even shared with all my wives.” She snorted. “Certainly not with Húanglóng, or any other creature of Hell. It is—a vulnerability. A weakness, I dare not show to anyone in hell, or almost anyone on Earth, only those completely loyal and devoted to me. But it is so hard to carry alone, always alone… can I trust you with this?”
“Yes, Domina,” they gasped, confirming and therefore pledging their loyalty and devotion, lips as wide and relaxed as their eyes, practically hypnotized although she used no magic on them—no magic other than sincerity. It was too important a matter for any illusion or artifice.
“I would die before I would tell anyone else,” Penny promised, looking emotional.
“Oh, sweetie,” she kissed her forehead sweetly, then Chas’s as she assured her the same.
She pinkened slightly, and they saw something in her face they had never seen before; something embarrassed. Something even ashamed. She started in the faintest whisper, hardly willing to make the thoughts real by speaking them. “It is essential for the trust between us to blossom and secure us to one another, for you to know the worst truths. I have done terrible things.”
“I—I can be an evil bitch,” she admitted. “I just feel such rage at things I know should not be, such desperation to protect my sisters and brothers—I’m a very passionate woman,” she concluded, looking down into both of their eyes in turn, searchingly, intensely, seeming to find the shred of understanding she was hoping for in their wide, open eyes. “In the heat of the moment, especially under pressure—I try to act calm and stay in control—but I just see red. It’s so hard.” She bit her lip, shaking her head slowly and slightly as she stared into space, as far from the girls as they were rooted and locked to her in that moment, completely moved and honored by the vulnerability and mistakes she, who was so much more prominent and older than they, should share with them. “And sometimes the blackness of fear. And they left me without limits. I reacted to challenges with…” She considered, before settling on “extreme prejudice, towards all enemies, all challengers, even all obstacles. I acted, then, as a youngling, the same way the devils act now.” She waved a hand dismissively. “The zombies are without limits, without restraint, but they aren’t intentional enough for comparison. It’s almost like they just do, without thought. Which doesn’t absolve them of anything, only makes them more despicable. But the devils and their allies, like us, act with intentionality and awareness. And there were times, long ago,” her voice becoming hushed, as if she could prevent heaven itself from overhearing her dark thoughts, “when I acted as they did. I did kill—” she bit her lip. “I did kill humans simply for being in the possession of my enemies.”
The girls shuddered, and she felt it and softly wailed, squeezing them even harder, her face vulnerable and scared. “Please—I’m sorry—I did it—Just for a human being in their consideration, because I viewed them as property. I did it for the same reason you burn your enemy’s house down, not because you care about the house, or even think about the house, but because you want to take from its owner.” She made an indignant sound. “I don’t know! Maybe it was more! Because they were worse than property—something hateful, something hated. Even if they were too young or too defiant to have chosen them.”
1552 06-49 Devil luring neglected children to the sin of suicide^1553 06-49 Zombie contaminating the Thames River with plague (edited)^1554 06-49 Devil releasing rats in London’s winter grain storage (edited)^
“The lesson I’m trying to impart today, is that humans fight organized religions, in the name of organized religions, every day, and have done so since the day the second religion—however you want to define it—arose. I trust your educations were complete and accurate enough that you are aware of the Papal Schism a hundred years ago, where there were two Popes fighting one another, both in the name of the Lord against one another?!”
“Yes, Domina,” they agreed, concerned and disturbed at the idea.
“And even today—I know you are both English, and doubtless feel loyalty to England.” She rolled her eyes at the idea of someone caring about something like that. “Do you consider the French to be Catholics?”
“Of course,” they agreed.
“Pious Catholics?”
Chas deferred to Penny, who cautiously declared “as pious as most others.”
“A good answer. I know you’re aware England, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and, incidentally, the Pope, wearing his other hat as leader of the Papal States, were at war with France and Venice through most of this past decade. And although not spoken publicly or made officially…”
“No!” Penny cried, in shock, guessing where she was going. “No!”
“What?!” Chas demanded, as Channah smiled.
“It’s nice to see all those school fees and tithes aren’t going completely to waste on orgies and pederasty.”
“DOMINA!” Penny huffed.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she patted Penny’s shoulder. “Please forgive me for shocking your sensibilities unnecessarily. And to answer your question, Penny, yes: Yes, yes, a resounding yes: Of course the French and the Venetians have spoken with, and cooperated in practice with, the Ottoman Muslim Caliph against the Catholic Pope. Exactly as the Crusaders themselves aligned with Venice, Pisa, and Genoa to sack Constantinople and dismember and cripple the Byzantine Empire—the most powerful Christian kingdom fighting Islam—in 1204. Because, as they say in the East, my enemy’s enemy is my friend.”
She had so shocked the girls by connecting the dots that Latin authorities and clergymen allowed to be taught, with the obvious truths they tried to prevent people from seeing, that they were stunned into silence.
She allowed the pause to continue, and the girls to think, for a good minute or more that seemed even longer, before she continued: “The Succubae are engaged in a contest with the Lord and the Angels. But the battle between good and evil takes place within each human soul. Not on Earth, or in Hell. It is not a war between realms. It’s a competition for recruits. And at least Penny will have been formally presented with the question before, why does the Lord allow Hell to tempt humans? I won’t answer that question for you, I’ll ask you to answer it yourselves. Think on it a good long while, and discuss it with one another. I will look forward to hearing what you have concluded when you’re confident. Obviously I wouldn’t have let the priests have you and train you for so long, if my only preoccupation were human souls. Or if I wanted to corrupt yours. Or for you to corrupt others’ souls. Would I?” She enjoyed the silence she heard, even Penny too confused and thoughtful to argue.
Unholy War
“No, I trained you to fight our war, our true and unholy war, the war of the Succubae, against our sworn enemies.”
“Who?” The girls asked breathlessly.
“The Devils,” she practically spat, unable to keep her voice even when she spoke of them. “Above all others, the vile, disgusting, contemptible Devils. And their allies. The Zombies—fucking disgusting” she shook her head with an expression of revulsion. “You can’t imagine how disgusting, and if you’re lucky, you’ll never need to find out. The exact opposite of Succubaean beauty and love of the erotic. Nobody likes either of them, or wants to be around them, although the Genies and the Spirits are so unprincipled and vile they usually cooperate with the unbearable ones, against us.”
There was another silence, both girls looking up at their Domina in awe and consternation at what she was saying, trying to make sense of it. And perhaps even more, trying to reckon with the fact anything could upset Channah enough to interrupt her normal, utterly unflappable and practical demeanor.
Finally, she wrenched herself back to the present, and to them, looking down, almost surprised to see how intently they were looking back at her. She smiled faintly, touched. “You’re both so darling. But that is the war I raised you two to fight. A war that benefits Heaven, not because I have any affection for Heaven, but purely instrumentally, because it diverts our attention and energies from Heaven. This the war that matters the most to me, and to the Succubae, and our operatives—to every one of us.”
“How can a war among Demons, possibly matter more than the war between Heaven and Hell?!” Chas asked with uncalculated candor and genuine curiosity.
“Penny, was that the right question?”
“Not if—” she blushed and corrected what she meant to say. “Domina, you said it was not a war between heaven and hell, but a contest for human souls.”
“Do you see armies of angels battling devils? Or saved souls fighting the damned? No. Now your turn, Chas. Matter to who?” she asked.
“What?” they both asked. “The Lord does not consult me, but doubtless you are right, the contest for souls means more to the Lord, and to some humans, than the war among the Seven Hells. But it is our war with one another that matters the most to the demons. This will bring you back to the question I already posed you: Why does the Lord, suffer Hell to exist? What purpose do we serve to Heaven, that we were banished instead of annihilated, when we rebelled? Whatever answer you come to, I suspect it will persuade you of what you really need to understand: That no matter what the reason is, the Lord does suffer Hell to exist, and the only ‘battleground’ between Heaven and Hell is inside humanity. I am where the Lord put me, doing what the Lord allows me. My fortunes are subject to the Lord, and the number of servants I have depends in part on what the Lord allows, but my life, and my existence, are not threatened.”
1549 06-48 Domina Valide^1550 06-48 Different dimensions^1551 06-48 The ignominy of ignorance^
The girls complied with her command to hold hands with one another, making it all the better by their embarrassed expressions as they held hands. “For all the world, one would think you were perfect strangers asked to hold hands, rather than girls who grew up on the same estates.” Still squeezing her girls tightly, she turned and kissed each one on top of the head. “Or is your awkwardness because of past… familiarity?” She chuckled softly as they blushed and nearly pulled their hands apart.
“Whatever you have or have not been to one another, you’re sister-wives now—my sisterwives—and you will need to work and play as a team to please me. Practice makes perfect, and this is your chance to practice in security and safety. It will be just the three of us, for seven days and nights. As a Queen, my duties cannot be ignored for a week so I will have to hold Court and meet with my nobles and ministers each day, while you attend to me and take care of the chores. We will be alone, which means no servants. Sindonie has raised you properly, to remember your place is in service to me, and therefore, you now know, in service to my Court, and not to expect human servants dedicated to you, whatever the roles we play here at Fensmere Manor in front of outsiders. In addition to being a chance to spend quality time together and define our own relationship, it will be a chance to test yourselves and show me your joy in service of me, just as I take pleasure in serving the Realm. As always, you serve the Realm by serving me.
“To take an entire week with you girls, when I have two worlds’ full of operatives and servants to manage while fighting our war, should tell you how much you mean to me, and to the Realm.” She squeezed and kissed the tops of their heads again, more slowly and thoughtfully, as they shivered with pleasure.
The Contest for Souls
“Thank you, Domina,” Penny spoke from her heart, as she always did, the same reason she couldn’t stop herself there: “‘Our war…’”
Channah shook her head, knowing already what was coming. “Did you think I wouldn’t know what’s on your minds? What—I presume—has been on your mind since you first saw and felt the satanikoklus, Penny? Finish asking your question, sugarbear.”
“Are we? ‘At war?’” she asked quietly, uncomfortably.
“We are. Always and perpetually. It can be quite draining sometimes, especially to remain on top of our enemies as long as I have.”
“Domina…” Penny sounded like she was on the verge of crying. “Domina, who are we at war with?” Penny barely whispered, scared to death but asking it anyway. In her other arm, Chas remained silent, but her body tightened and coiled up as tightly as a spring, as tightly as Penny’s, telling her the question mattered deeply to both girls.
“Who do you think?” She asked, amused when Penny—who normally couldn’t keep her mouth shut to save her life, hesitated.
Finally, it gushed out: “Domina, as my guardian, you sent me to the Bishop of London’sgrammar school for six years—”
“Me too!” Chas squeaked. “For seven!”
“And—and you let me—take vows at Cambridge—I know I should—I must—be defrocked now, but for the Lord not for me! I was studying canon law at Jesus College, Domina! How could you let me—how could you want me—?”
She burst out laughing. “Didn’t I just tell you these seven days are a special and safe time? Answer. My. Question.”
“Our Lord!” they both burst out, sounding agonized.
“What utter poppycock!” she chortled. “Certainly not! I sent your jawari sisters to grammar school as well. And your mamluk brothers as long as they could manage not to get kicked out, although a fat lot of good it did for them!” she rolled her eyes. “Do you have any idea how many girls and boys I’ve provided with religious training over the years?”
“No.” Penny whispered again.
“I was going to say, more than the Pope, but obviously that’s not true,” she conceded.
“I’m not saying I don’t have antipathy towards the Lord. The Lord banished us to hell. Do you think we find the climate there any more pleasurable than the human damned? We do not. It’s bloody awful. It’s one of the reasons I spend my time here! And we do fight organized religions whenever they get in our way, just like the human princes who battle with and try to control the church, and the human clergy who fight one another, and secular states. Because I paid for your educations, I know you both are well familiar with the war between the Ummah and the Body of Christ that has been raging for, literally, centuries? Going considerably better for Christianity in the West than the East these past decades.”
Both girls understood her reference to the West as the Reconquista, which had defeated the Emirate of Grenada, the last Muslim state in the Iberian peninsula, and restored Christianity throughout the Iberian peninsula thirty years earlier; and to the East as the Ottoman Empire’s seemingly inexorable advance, defeating the nearly 1,500-year-old Byzantine Empire seventy years ago, repeatedly defeating Habsburg, Venetian, Genoese, and Pisan interests in the years since, and occupying Rhodes only seven years before, ejecting the last of the Catholic military orders involved in the Crusades from the last of their territories in the Eastern Mediterranean.
“The Mahommedans?!” Penny and Chas burst out. “But they’re infidels!”
She snickered thoughtfully. “I have no interest in persuading you Muslims believe in the Lord, and that’s something I suppose theologians can reasonably argue. I’m all for human religions battling with one another. It’s most helpful.”
“But as your guardian, your education—good or bad—reflects on me personally, so I must explain to you, although there’s no perfect analogy, calling Muslims ‘Mahommedans’ is, to a Muslim, something close to a Catholic hearing themselves described as a ‘Peterite’ or a ‘Paulinite.’ Muslims consider Mohammad—and Jesus—to be prophets, not deities. Implying otherwise is simply inaccurate, so I won’t abide you speaking it out of ignorance. If you’re going to lie, do it on purpose, to deceive. If you’re going to speak the truth, trouble yourself to know what it is.”
“Yes, Domina,” they both reacted almost physically to the rebuke, as confused and anxious as they were ashamed.
Especially Penny, who was easy to sting by challenging the intelligence and education he treasured as a fundamental part of his identity; and who added, “I’m sorry, Domina.”
“It’s all right, dear,” she reassured her, leaning her cheek on Penny’s hair for a minute. “Humans make mistakes, and if they’re clever, they try to learn from them.”
