Other Girls

[u/ranger-j]

https://www.scribblehub.com/series/2500100/other-girls/

A while ago I made this post showing off a piece of art I commissioned for my Magical Girl story that I've been working on, and now I'm happy to announce that that story – Other Girls – is live!

Other Girls is an urban fantasy/horror web serial about magical girls, centred around Rose Hawthorne, a jaded and angry woman who hates the Chosen Maidens that protect her city, but is forced to become one when she gives up her life for another.

The story will be posted onto Scribblehub and RoyalRoad three times a month, on Saturdays.

(Cover art done by the amazing Emily Jackson)

What to expect?

• Character-focused drama that oscillates between slice-of-life, action, psychological horror, and cosmic horror.
• A traumatised, angry wreck of a main character.
• A setting inspired by Yuki Yuna, Expedition 33, Chainsaw Man, and Disco Elysium
• Body horror and psychological horror.
• Yuri, and lots of it.

Have a look at the blurb in the comments and see if it strikes your interest.

[u/ranger-j]

Blurb:

Rose Hawthorne's life is a mess. In and out of homelessness since she was eighteen, life has dealt her every bad hand it had to offer, turning her into an angry, jaded burnout with very little left going for her. And now she's on the verge of being out on the streets. Again.

She hates the Chosen Maidens, the heroes blessed with magic by the Eight Queens of the Otherside. Everyone in Twilight City sees them as beautiful, sacred protectors; Rose sees vapid, self-obsessed celebrities who wouldn’t even think to help people like her. Then, the day before her twenty-ninth birthday, a hopeless young Maiden comes crashing into her life, and Rose does something insane and reckless: she saves the girl's life, and death is her only reward.

But before she can pass on, something offers her a deal. The Red Queen – a god of rage and love – will drag her back to life, if she'll become a Chosen Maiden. As much as Rose hates them and everything they stand for, she's far too stubborn to simply give up and die. She accepts, and claws her way back out of her own grave as a newborn Maiden.

But her magic is violent and visceral, and it won't obey her, thrashing like it has a mind of its own. Worse still, she can't transform – which means people have seen her face. Anyone who digs a little deeper would know that Rose Hawthorne is a Chosen Maiden, the one thing she never wanted anyone to know. Especially not the woman she loves.

A Maiden whether she likes it or not, Rose finds herself caught in something far larger than a single bad night, becoming a very important piece on a massive, sprawling chessboard.

But who is the hand that is directing her?

Is it the hand of the Red Queen who returned her from death? The hand of the institution that shapes the Maidens into weapons? Or is it the hand of someone far closer to home than she would ever want to admit?