A mythically saturated, musically interlaced, morally ambiguous system of interwoven stories, set within the world of the Vatican strip club and its surrounding symbolic cityscape.
Setting: A near-timeless version of 1970s–1996 California noir. The Vatican is a strip club with an ironic name, no overt religious décor, but mythic energy flows through its rooms, stages, and dressing areas.
Narrative Form: Interlaced character arcs. Stories told from multiple perspectives. Sonic storytelling and non-diegetic music carry thematic revelations.
Socratic Project: Each story dramatizes a philosophical tension. No didactic resolution. Ambiguity and irony are sacred.
World Rules: Each narrative contains its own dialectical world rule—a principle revealed by action and contradiction.
Main Characters: Beatrix – The Muse. Longing for freedom, trapped in control. Embodiment of beauty that reveals.
Calvin – Former lover turned misguided protector. Aspires to manage, possess, justify.
World Rule: You cannot possess the Muse without destroying her.
Tone: Interpersonal tragedy, slow dissolution, moral slippage.
Narrative Function: The central knot. Other stories intersect or echo from it.
Main Character: Petit – Sound engineer. Builder. Hermetic/Frommian.
Arc: From silence and systemic delay to performance of moral truth under pressure.
Key Scene: He is coerced into singing onstage, but what emerges is his masterpiece—a Frommian lament that reveals the moral sickness of the room without naming names.
World Rule (Implied): You are not ready until you are broken open.
Mythic Resonance: Hephaestus, Orpheus, Hermes-in-slow-motion.
Support Characters: Floyd and Rian – Childhood friends. Now successful. They embody Apollo and Hermes but lack moral depth.
Tone: Heartbreak, restraint, reluctant beauty.
Main Character: Body – Bouncer at the Vatican. Known by his body, not his mind.
Backstory: Founded a business with friends. Left behind. Denied a loan by a friend’s daughter.
Socratic Tension: Does goodness matter if no one sees it?
World Rule: You can carry the world and still be abandoned.
Archetype: Atlas (bearing a weight unacknowledged).
Tone: Quiet, existential, physical tension.
Narrative Role: Anchor. Peripheral presence who watches everything. May hear Petit's song and begin to reckon with himself.
Main Character: Mirra – Dancer. Neurodivergent. Mycelial connector.
Gift: Uncanny pattern recognition. Social distribution network for black-market logistics.
Role: Not kingpin, not dealer—the nerve system.
Tragedy: Her recursive cognition becomes paralysis in the dressing room. She cannot leave until she is perfect.
Diagnosis: Neurodivergent, likely anorexic. Her body is both vessel and enemy.
World Rule: You cannot leave until you're perfect.
Voice Sources: Simone Weil, Vanity lore, beauty blog fragments, noir crime sociology, cosmetic advertisements.
Tone: Claustrophobic, surreal, melancholic brilliance.
Narrative Function: The Vatican’s spiritual interior. A shadow oracle.
Hephaestus: Petit (building what others use)
Orpheus: Petit (sings once, truth through heartbreak)
Ariadne / Narcissus: Mirra (mirror-bound, connective)
Apollo & Hermes: Floyd and Rian (voice without depth)
Dionysus: The Vatican itself—chaos, danger, ecstasy
Atlas: Body (invisible effort, unshared burden)
Hades (in shadow): The Pope—frail, Machiavellian, background corruption
Sleepwalk (Santo & Johnny) – underscoring Petit's heartbreak
Love and Happiness (Al Green) – arrival of Floyd and Rian
Music used narratively, not casually. Echoes theme, irony, or rupture.
Role: Drug supplier, matriarch, unofficial queen of Vatican logistics.
Mythic Resonance: Hera (wrathful protector), Gaia (containment, source).
Backstory: Ran supply logistics while parenting in the same space. Her children are no longer present—reason unclear. Married to the true owner of the Vatican. She mediates between him and the chaos below.
Tension: Is silence mercy or complicity?
Power: Quiet but absolute. The Pope answers to her. Her husband acts without mercy, but she withholds.
Style: Controlled, dangerous, maternal in a way that curdles.
Relationships: The Pope calls her “Mother Milk”—half reverence, half fetish. Beatrix may have worked for her or been indebted once. Mirra works in her distribution network.
Key Line: “He doesn’t need to know everything. That’s how you’re still breathing.”
Narrative Use: Raises stakes of every power play. Her name alone shifts a scene’s gravity.
Role: Manager of the Vatican.
Mythic Resonance: Hades (in shadow), Pontius Pilate (hollow authority).
Backstory: Thinks he’s building community. In truth, he siphons the room’s energy. Wears a tracksuit like a robe. Addicted to his own supply.
Tension: Does facilitating community justify exploitation?
Fate: Eventually bleeds out in the corner. Possibly at the hands of Mother Milk—or her silence.
Style: Greasy, gold chain, shaky voice. Wants to be feared, ends up pitied.
Narrative Use: Foil. An atmospheric corruption. The embodiment of deluded middle management.
Role: Owner of the Vatican. Rarely seen.
Mythic Resonance: Cronos (time as judgment), The Godfather, Marcellus Wallace.
Backstory: Not known directly. Known through fear. Presence shapes behavior even in absence.
Tension: What power is so absolute that it need not speak?
Narrative Use: Unseen gravity. The silent limit of how far characters can go. The fact that Mother Milk withholds from him defines her danger.