Characters: Toxic Witches (Patreon)

Characters for a comic I want to make eventually, Ellie (left) and Rachel (right).

The comic is about two witches and best friends in a coastal Texas town, and how their codependent relationship turns toxic when its no longer stable.

 Spoilers below if you care about that sort of thing:

Ellie is insecure and grappling with not understanding if she likes Rachel as a friend or a love interest, which causes them to not be friends on equal footing, with Rachel always having more power whether she knows it or not. But Ellie is also their moral center, and without her Rachel would be a lot more destructive. Rachel is haughty and brash, believing herself (and therefor Ellie) better than their peers, magic and non-magic users alike. She believes she's gonna make it out of their shit town and into a good school or magic job, and she's gonna drag Ellie up with her, not giving her the credit (or believing) that she could do it without her. She's the kind of person to unironically call people "sheep," but is also the friend who will fist-fight to defend you. They both dream of escaping their home town together and making it as licensed witches. It's also worth noting that Ellie is poor, was raised using a form of magic that isn't the standardized version, and has limited resources from her family. Rachel however comes from a long line of established witches with money and resources.

The two exist in an alternate history world where magic, monsters, fairies, myths, etc exists but are kept secret from public. Kinda like Harry Potter. The difference is that the story proper takes place in a small Texas town with poor infrastructure - there isn't even a magic school for the girls to attend, as private schools are far away or too expensive, so they attend normal high school and have weekend magic classes. And as the infrastructure is so poor, the local magic community is in a state of disarray - limited enforcement, underfunded programs, etc. On top of this, the homogenous white-washed magic taught as standard is unfriendly to different ethnic groups with their own magical histories and lexicons, causing more unfair educational problems and putting more people at a disadvantage.

When the story starts, we're introduced to a card game being played by the local magic youths. The base game is innocent, playing cards that can bind to local Wisps (not ghosts or spirits but the residual magic left by entities) to do card battles with. But the games have been corrupted by the discovery that they can be Blood Bound to things to control them - blood bonding is a forbidden magic form where you bind someone to a contract to control them using their blood - it is forbidden whether the bonded is willing or not. This wierd unexpected feature has been used by players to injure a creature and use their blood to bind them to cards and make them fight. Basically making a shitty kids card game out of a serious form of magic. The blood bound cards are innocently named Custom Cards.

Ellie and Rachel are actually introduced in an antagonistic light. The kids are warning each other not to play against them, because they have a reputation of only betting Custom Cards, and destroying the ones they win. The blood-binding thing isn't revealed at that point, so it just comes across that they're bullies ruining a card game. The reality is Rachel has gotten really good at the game so that, at Ellie's behest, they can win Custom Cards and destroy them, which releases the bound creatures from their control. They've decided they don't like the practice and are making it their mission to destroy as many as they can... and genuinely love playing up the antagonistic view everyone has of them.

The smart thing would be to report the Custom Card use to authorities, but the girls understandably don't trust them, and think they're smarter than all the adults anyway. A recurring theme that bites them in the ass later.

There's a lot of stuff that happens, but their friendship hits a snag when Rachel's grandfather becomes aware of just how advanced the girls are. Due to his position in magic society, he has the ability to recommend a single student for the next year at one of the good magic academies. And he wants to give it to Ellie, his reasoning being that with his family's resources, Rachel doesn't need it - she'll be fine if she works hard, whereas this might be Ellie's only shot.

So the bulk of the story takes place before and during summer vacation before their junior year, and the fallout of Rachel's grandfather's choice putting strain on their relationship and making them finally see how flimsy it is. To the point of them having an explosive fight and the friendship not just ending, but becoming violently antagonistic.

The rest of the story explores them as everyone presumes them rivals, and adults even let them duke it out a bit thinking that that's what rivals need. The problem with this that becomes apparent is that rivals are presumed to be on equal footing in terms of power and respect, and even ignoring their financial and social backgrounds, this just isn't the case. Ellie can't be a good rival because she has to come to turns with the fact she's super gay and in love with Rachel, so Rachel is always going to have the upper hand. And Ellie can't move forward until she admits that.

Again, spoilers, but this admission happens during a climactic fight that supposed to be their big one-on-one moment, but Elli breaking down over admitting this brings it to an intentionally anticlimactic end. Everyone realizes the adults should have stepped in way sooner, that this was never going to end nice and clean with the girls friends again having earned respect as rivals. And the only way either of them can move on is to leave each other and grow apart.

Anyway that's the story, minus a lot of other stuff.