and on divacreates.com. It chronicles the lives of young nuns who go about their daily hijinks with each other, forming bonds along the way.Originally starting as a series of small sketches on May 12, 2020, it has since grown into Diva's favorite passion project that has developed a devout following, now consisting of over 800+ images uploaded on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It was originally unnamed until December 19, 2020, when Diva announced in a tweet of a possible artbook in the works, thus solidifying its current and official name. On April 28, 2022, artbooks containing comics 1-100 and 101-200 were released, and gave official nicknames for the nuns. The comic is a Nameless Narrative with no spoken dialogue, so before the nicknames were printed the characters were all referred to by Fan Nicknames.
When it launched, the comic was updated on Monday-Saturday (and for the first year, also on Sunday), but a Spin-Off called Zookeepers launched on Patreon and Fanbox on January 3, 2023, featuring the titular zookeepers from the two-week zoo storyline in November 2022. One year later, starting November 18, 2023, Zookeepers has started to appear on Twitter as well, 100 episodes behind Patreon. For first two months, both Little Nuns and Zookeepers were alternating on a daily basis, but since March 2023, Little Nuns are released on weekdays, while Zookeepers have been scheduled for weekends. note
To celebrate the 1000th comic published on October 27, 2023, Diva opened a personal website at divacreates.com, with an archive of all Little Nuns comics, a preview of Zookeepers, and an upcoming gamebook known as Sunflower.
Little Nuns provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Time Period: It's not clear when, exactly, the series takes place. The lack of most modern conveniences indicates it's at some point in the past, at least; Spicy Nun's camera is extremely antique-looking yet this comic reveals that they have a Volkswagen-like van.
- Animal Motif: Froggy Nun of course has frogs, while her closest friend Sheep Nun has... guess. The lesser-seen Bunny Nun is also self-explanatory. Also, ducks. Lots and lots of ducks.
- Art Evolution: While the illustrations remain detailed, the early installments had the characters drawn more proportionally and the color palette was subdued and somewhat desautrated. As time went on, the characters' looks were exaggerated, and they began showing cartoony traits.
- Art Imitates Art: A few strips parody famous works of art, including:
- Mona Lisa Smile along with The Vitruvian Pose (here)
- "Last Supper" Steal (here)
- Pietà Plagiarism (here)
- Sistine Steal, namely "The Creation of Adam" (here)
- The Gleaners (here)
- The Milkmaid (here)
- American Gothic Couple (here)
- Napoleon Crossing The Alps (here)
- Mona Lisa Smile along with The Vitruvian Pose (here
- Artistic License – Religion: In real life, a woman must be 18 or older before she can take the vows and become a nun. While young girls living with the church (perhaps as orphans) isn't unheard of, they wouldn't wear the habits until they take those vows. Also, nuns don't show hair under their habits, but this is likely to help differentiate the characters (only two of the nuns, the Mother Superior and Star Nun, wear their habits correctly).
- Beware the Nice Ones: One arc has a flock of pigeons try to terrorize the convent, including hypnotizing some of the main characters into accepting them. They're ultimately bested when they're stared into submission by Bunny Nun, of all characters.
- Big Eater: The aptly-nicknamed Hungry Nun is always eating. She's rather thin despite this, though a number of pictures show she's extremely good at sports, implying she exercises enough to make up for the calories.
- Book Ends: The August-September 2023 flashback arc on the Hungry Nun's past shows her mother's donut store in shambles with no customers due to the chef falling ill in the second strip. The previous strip had a photo of Hungry Nun's mother and father, the latter in a chef uniform, and nowhere to be seen in the arc. The last strip shows the store has grown into a successful chain called Donut Boy, with Hungry Nun's mother as CEO. The shop is seen with the the other nuns visiting, several products sold out, and an announcement of a new location opening at the zoo.
- Butt-Monkey: Leaf Nun is constantly getting hurt or into other trouble. She's never seen without at least one bandage.
- Call-Back:
- Clumsy Nun receives a chili pepper stuffed toy for her birthday, just as she gave one to Spicy Nun for hers earlier in the year.
- Hungry Nun is shown facing the Pancake Nun's humongous stack of pancakes. As you'd expect from her, she is more than satisfied and asks for seconds, contrast to the rest who still can't finish one stack.
- During the nuns' first trip to the zoo in November 2022 arc, a pair of round glasses, similar to the ones that Glasses Nun wears, can be seen in some images, making it seem like she lost her glasses. At that time she didn't. The next time the nuns pay a visit to the zoo in January 2024 arc, however, she did lose her glasses this time around.
- Calvinball: The nuns play "A NEW SPORT" that involves hitting a soccer ball with a baseball bat, with a referee holding yellow and red cards, and a catcher wearing an oven mitt.
- Comically Missing the Point: On the October 26, 2022 comic, Clumsy Nun and Spicy Nun lecture Froggy Nun on her self-centeredness using a diagram of her with the word "ME" repeatedly written where her brain would be, captioned "You're like a 3 year old." Froggy Nun counters this by saying she's actually 8 years old, and—because diagram shows her without hair—she isn't bald.
- A Day in the Limelight: After the one-year anniversary, a series of pictures ran featuring the older nuns, in particular the Mother Superior when she first entered the monastery.
- Death by Childbirth: The comic showing a baby Froggy Nun visiting the convent implies that this happened to her mother (her father has tear stains on his shirt, Strict Nun looks sorrowful, and Froggy Nun's stroller has her mother's frog puppet in it).
- Disappeared Dad: In the beginning of the flashback arc on Hungry Nun's past, there is a photo of Hungry Nun's mother and father. The father never appears in the flashback or the present, and there are a number of letters surrounding the photo, implying that he passed away from illness not long after Hungry Nun was born.
- Does Not Like Spam: Clumsy Nun does not like broccoli, and is forced to eat it by the older and more mature Strict Nun, presumably because she did something wrong while her friends go out to play baseball. Later gets referenced in this panel where the Strict Nun is put in the same situation with tomatoes.
- Doorstop Baby: One of the flashback illustrations reveals that Clumsy Nun was left at the monastery this way.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Several things were quite different during early strips.
- For starters, there's the obviously different art style (see Art Evolution above).
- Various random nuns appeared once or twice, only to be never heard from or even acknowledged again.
- Certain characters did not have their typical trait pronounced yet.
- Hungry nun was not always the glutton she is now.
- Bunny nun did not have her signature expressive bunny ornament, instead carrying a stuffed bunny.
- Froggy's obsession with frogs and her troublemaking tendencies started much later.
- Father came off as a strict man in his initial appearance, rather than the No-Respect Guy he's now.
- And last, but not least, there were no ducks or chicken (although Diva later posted revised versions of the early pictures with added chicken to pixiv).
- Easter Egg: There's a chicken hidden in every page after August 3rd, 2020, when he made his escape.
- Exact Words: One strip has Hungry nun finding a giant circular hole in her pizza. This was after she placed a poster saying she'll be sharing half of that pizza - the hole makes up one half of the pizza's area. (Well, she did not specify, what sort of half she meant.)
- Extreme Omnivore: Froggy Nun will eat practically anything. Raw pumpkins, paper cookies... at one point she's seen biting into an unpeeled banana.
- Eyes Always Shut: Star Nun is never seen with her eyes open. Even in the flashbacks to her childhood at the convent, she always has closed eyes.
- Flashback: A number of the drawings jump back to when the characters were younger. Aside from the present, some of the timeframes looked at include the Clumsy Nun's early childhood, and fifty years before the present when the convent was just getting started.
- Foul Waterfowl: Unlike the comedic depiction of the ducks, one mini-arc involved an invasion of Canadian geese, which were exactly as ferocious and aggressive as in reality, and with the adults and older nuns coincidentally away, it was up to the Little Nuns and their ducks to figure out how to fend them off before they wrecked everything.
- A Friend in Need: Clumsy Nun gets her gown stained with tea hours before her Christmas recital. Her fellow nuns decide to help her through it by staining their own gowns, then staining the gowns of their ducks for good measure.
- Generation Xerox: Spicy Nun is a miniature copy of her mother, just with her bangs on the opposite side. Both are amazing artists.
- Froggy Nun looks like a miniature version of both her mother and grandmother, and all three of them have had a love for green and amphibians at some point in their lives.
- Froggy Nun looks like a miniature version of both her mother and grandmother, and all three of them have had a love for green and amphibians at some point in their lives
- Head Pet: What the hedgehog becomes to Glasses Nun.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: The nuns all at least generally like each other, but some are closer than others. The most notable pairing is Froggy Nun and Sheep Nun, who go back a very long way.
- Horse of a Different Color: Froggy Nun frequently rides on the back of her pet ostrich.
- Jealous Pet: Froggy's ostrich gets visibly upset whenever Froggy rides a different animal.
- "Last Supper" Steal: The August 16, 2021 drawing shows the nuns as The Last Supper, with Clumsy Nun as Jesus. The positions don't have any special meaning... except that, of course, Froggy Nun is Judas.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Series milestones and holidays are often marked by a celebration in-universe. #100 celebrated a duck themed anniversary, #200 celebrated Spicy's birthday, #300 celebrated the arrival of Froggy Nun into the monastery, #400 had Glasses Nun hold a concert on a real guitar, and #1000 was a monastery party held after Clumsy and Strict made up.
- Missing Mom: There are three graves on Froggy Nun's family's farm, her mother never appears during the mini-arc set on said farm, and Froggy Nun leaves a stuffed animal she made on one of the graves. All the evidence points to her mother having passed on.
- Nameless Narrative: As the use of nicknames might imply, the characters in this series have no known "real" names, but the artbooks released in April 2022 gave official nicknames. In-universe, whenever a character would be identified by name in writing, they're instead singled out by a drawing of their face.
- As of October 2023, there has been only two named characters: A new girl looking for the convent has a pet bulldog named Buster in strip 982, and the official website states that Spicy's kitten is named Pepper.
- Onion Tears: This comic has the nuns cut onions. Despite wearing dark glasses intended for protection, they still end up tearing up.
- The One Guy: Given that the series is set in a convent, the only recurring male character is the Father.
- Only Sane Man: Star Nun, who stays well above the shenanigans at the convent. Strict Nun tries to be this, but sometimes her anger will get the best of her. Father also tries to be one, and while he usually doesn't get involved with whatever the nuns are up to, whenever he does, he tends to be the Butt-Monkey in their antics.
- Parental Abandonment: Relatively common in this setting; the only one of the younger generation of nuns to have both parents is Sheep Nun, and of the older generation, Strict Nun and the Artist were both street children before arriving at the convent.
- Perpetual Frowner: Froggy Nun is always seen with a triangle shape frown. Her father also has this trait, if you can see under his mustache.
- Pineapple Ruins Pizza: The July 2, 2022 post shows the Clumsy Nun (the one with blonde hair) attempting to put a giant pineapple ring on her pizza, with the rest of the clergy and flock of ducks appropriately reacting with disgust. Ironically, the two nuns on the upper right don't seem to mind it that much and are shown to be proud of her doing so, and some Hypocritical Humor is involved with the Froggy Nun on the left whose slice of pizza contains a more bizarre mix of toppings such as a banana, broccoli, and presumably chocolate or barbecue sauce.
- Quacking Up: Almost every image has at least one duck, usually either participating in the nuns’ shenanigans or just generally being Ridiculously Cute Critters.
- Quitting to Get Married: Spicy's mother used to be a nun for a long time. For some unstated reasons she left the convent, but given that she returned some odd years later with Spicy, it's implied that she left because she'd fallen in love.
- Radish Cure: Glasses Nun decides that she's too old for cutesy, childish things like a duck hat, so she declines when her friends give her one. They and some of the older nuns then bombard her with many "grown up" activities for her to try, including drinking black coffee and communicating properly with friends. She gives up pretty easily after that.
- Read the Fine Print: The August 28, 2021 picture shows Clumsy Nun trying to run a scam with a big banner that says "I'll Trade You A Cookie For Many Cookie"... with the word "toys" in much smaller print. (The "cookies" she's giving away are made of cardboard.)
- The Rival: The Strict Nun and the Smug Nun have had it in for each other since they were children.
- The zoo arc (from mid-to-late November 2022) features rivalry between two staff members, the seal caretaker and the polar bear caretaker, with the former doing anything to assert her superiority above the latter, such as scribbling "Seals are best" over a polar bear exhibition sign or placing "Recommend!" sign above (and a bunch of arrows pointing to) seal plushies, right next to a shelf of polar bear plushies.
- The zoo arc (from mid-to-late November 2022) features rivalry between two staff members, the seal caretaker and the polar bear caretaker, with the former doing anything to assert her superiority above the latter, such as scribbling "Seals are best" over a polar bear exhibition sign
- Shout-Out: Spicy Nun's caramel popcorn scheme illustration has her and Clumsy Nun in the poses of the Far Cry 4 box art.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Froggy Nun and her father both have a pouty-looking triangular frown (similar to Renge) as their default expression and a hook-shaped bang on their foreheads. The flashback to the beginning of the convent shows that Froggy Nun's grandmother also possessed both traits, and Froggy’s mother had the same froggy puppet and general love of frogs as her daughter (though she understandably lacks the family’s signature pout).
- Sweet Tooth: All of the young nuns love to eat cookies. In some cases, they like to do more playful things with them, like setting up a Cookie Bank or playing poker with them.
- Talking with Signs: As a nature of this being a silent comic, any messages, that can't be conveyed through image itself, are represented by characters holding up written signs, or as poster notes on wall (with a scribble of the face of nun, who wrote said message). Truth in Television as many convents have monastic silence, especially overnight (grand silence), and use notes or sign language during these periods.
- Averted in the Little Nuns Comics, published on Patreon and in print, which have regular dialogue.
- Team Pet: The convent has a bunch of chubby white ducks around. They often join in the sisters' antics and are something of a mascot to the series.
- Froggy Nun has three: an ostrich she raised from an egg, a large frog and a puppy descended from the dogs originally owned by the Mother Superior (see below). The Ostrich is often seen with the Grumpy Nun helping with errands around the convent when Froggy Nun is busy with something else or about to leave on a field trip.
- Glasses Nun adopts a hedgehog at one point, becoming a Head Pet for her at times.
- Spicy Nun later adopts a kitten, which becomes the focal point of an arc where it learns how to not take the nuns and the other animals for granted.
- The Mother Superior had a pair of dogs, which were adopted by Spicy's mother and left the convent with her. Those dogs would produce descendants, one of which would be adopted by Froggy Nun during the Mother's Day 2022 arc. As of September 2023, the dog is in the care of Sheep Nun's farm.
- Terrible Artist: The Strict Nun can't paint, sculpt, draw, or generally do any artistic talent well.
- Title Drop: In the arc leading to
episode #1000, a runaway girl who came to the convent looking for her cousin is writing in her diary with each episode. In the second page (#982), she writes that little nuns came with ducks when they noticed her. - Trademark Favorite Food: Spicy Nun has chili peppers, Froggy Nun has broccoli, and all the nuns adore cookies.
- Trash of the Titans: Downplayed, but Froggy Nun's living spaces are not in any sort of order.
- Unaffected by Spice: Spicy Nun loves spicy peppers. When she's in charge of dinner, she makes a stew so hot the others can't even finish a bowl, while she calmly eats hers. She also puts chili peppers into things nobody expects to spice up, like desserts and tea. Even her birthday cake is decorated in chili peppers, which no one else in the monastery can handle.
- Uncatty Resemblance: Froggy's ostrich resembles her with its hook-bang, half-circle eyes and even triangularly shaped mouth under its beak.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Two nuns from when Artist was in convent (and also when current adult nuns started joining), have apparently disappeared from the convent with no explanation. On boorus, one of them is nicknamed Brunette Bangs Nun, while the other is nicknamed Parted Grey Nun. The former has not appeared in any present images (as in, images that acknowledge the existence of any of the youngest nun generation) and can only be seen in flashback pictures or background photographs. The latter made some appearances in present time early on, but has not been seen (flashbacks to way deep past excluded) since these two strips, and it seems like her presence in convent from those days was retconned, as no later strip acknowledges, that she used to be there alongside Clumsy and co.
- They make a guest reappearance in 2022 Christmas arc, with one strip revealing that they had previously departed for a monastery in the city.
- They make a guest reappearance in 2022 Christmas arc, with one strip revealing
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The convent's location remains a mystery. Fanon placed it somewhere in Australia based on a few strips involving kangaroos, but this was disproven by a strip where a platypus (actually a disguised mole) was explicitly identified as a "non-native animal".
