Now with 20% more Epicnote Top row: Ash, The Principal of Charablys High, Dusky. Middle: Cerise, Mel, Jacqui, The Mysterious Masked Acadamy Avenger. Bottom row: Sandi, Faith, Callista
Magick Chicks is a Spin-Offwebcomic of the series Eerie Cuties. The series focuses on three witches known as the Hellrune Coven: Melissa Hellrune, Jacqui Brightmoon, and Cerise Darkshade, who are "volunteered" to transfer to a new high school after the three were caught using (or at least trying to use) a forbidden magic artifact (you can read the story arc from the start here).Once there, they find that 1) Its an all-girls school, 2) while they were queen bees at their old school, this new setting has its own ruling party in the form of the student council who're more than willing to show the three "the ropes," 3) it's led by a very powerful esper who practically has the whole student body wrapped around her finger, and 4) it's a school for monster hunters, and they consider 'witches'to be monsters.Say the least, trying to regain their popularity is the least of their worries.It's co-written by both Gisele Legace (who originally did the art) and Dave Zero1, with inks (and other inputs) by Shouri. As of February '12, the full art duties had been picked up by Cassandra Wedeking, who had worked on Evil Diva, but duties returned to Shouri in May '14, leaving Cassandra to work only on Dangerously Chloe.Updated Tuesdays and FridaysNow has a character page.
Mostly averted with the Hellrune Coven, but Melissa herself has one. Later, after Mel finally saves the cat of the little girl who'd been after Mel about that...then told by the little girl as she vanishes, "Sorry, but that's not my kitty..That's your kitty!", she ends up with a second cat, which tries and fails to flirt with the first. Jacqui is shown to have taken in one of Cerise's magicked puppies.
Alpha Bitch: Faith is introduced as Artemis Academy's Student Council President, the most powerful esper in its history, and the most popular girl on campus. Whereas Melissa begins as a former 'queen bee' from Charybdis Heights, who's determined to regain her old status, by overthrowing Faith.
Ambiguously Bi: Jacqui and Cerise, based on comments from Eerie Cuties — boy-crazy Jacqui, after Layla kissed male Melissa just as she turned back, was obsessed with hearing how it felt to kiss another girl, and Cerise's first reaction to Melissa's plan to seduce Layla was "she's too stuck up for my tastes," and to finding out they were at an all-girls school, "we're gonna have to become lesbians!"
Awesome McCoolname: The names of the girls in the Hellrune Coven, Melissa Hellrune, Jacqui Brightmoon and Cerise Darkshade. Justified because being a witch seems to be In the Blood, and thus it makes sense for families to take on "witchy" names.
Bad Boss: The principal of Charydbis shows some signs of this, dismissing out of hand Mel's statements about Tiffany, and yelling at them in general if they seemed to question anything.
Chapter 16 ("To the Spoiled Goes the Victory") has Cerise be one to Skye as Hekate hasn't formally made Cerise the new leader of the Coven (mainly because Mel's soul hadn't crossed the Styx—which meant Mel was dead).
The Beard: Inverted with Cerise and Callie; Cerise is using Callie in order to pretend to be a lesbian, which is necessary to be popular in the Schoolgirl Lesbian-dominated Artemis Academy. Unfortunately, she didn't tell Callie this little detail...no one expects this to end well. Given Callie has a Heroic BSOD from finding out Cerise was a witch and Cerise teleported Callie, Faith, Jacqui, Tiffany and a few others in an attempt to Kill 'em All, that's now a given.
The Bechdel Test: Used in universe as Callie complains about a movie failing it.
Becoming the Mask: Cerise. Originally she hooks up with Callie to get popular. Then she starts getting...feelings. And Skye gets some about Cerise too—and has Cerise reply in kind.
However, Cerise's more recent situations have shown that approach isn't without their own problems. Using Skye to get closer to Callie led to Skye becoming evil and nearly killing Callie by wolf proxy, and her recent attempt to dethrone Melissa backfired literally when Mel swatted Cerise's own fireball back at her.
Tiffany pulls an even bigger one after Faith nearly gets herself killed in a fight she instigates with Layla! Tiffany saves Faith, but couldn't bring herself to stake Layla either. So she Takes a Third Option by taking the bullet for Faith in order to save both. Not only does she succeed, it causes Faith to fall in love with her!
Melissa gets one of her own, by saving Faith and Tiffany from a pair of possessed students, during which, she's revealed to be a Magical Girl!
Break the Haughty: The transfer was meant as a form of this. Considering Melissa meeting Faith, time will tell how this goes.
Rain's defeat by Mel without magick use could be another one.
Mel's recent Eerie Cuties appearance has her going through Training from Hell with Tiff again, and she's bemoaning that she hates the Wand, Tiff, and being at a school without boys (which she laments as she realizes how much she missed that part).
Brought Down to Normal: Mel, Jacqui and Cerise used to being the queens of the school's social circle; unfortunately their new classmates didn't get the memo — and more unfortunately, they've completely forgotten how to earn their places as said queens, being used to everyone just giving them the respect and admiration they've taken for granted.
Charles Atlas Superpower: By default, humans in the story verse are about as strong and tough as they are in the real world. But with training, it is possible for anyone to accomplish feats that would be super human for us.
Cooldown Hug: Tiffany uses one to allow Layla to feed on her, to bring her out of her bloodlust.
Crossover: One major crossover even with Eerie Cuties already, and characters from both appear in the other.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: The Hellrune Coven may consist of stereotypical high school girls, but based on the spell Cerise fried Dusky with and the spell Mel cast that (accidentally) dropped Tiffany in one shot chances are good all three of them could handle themselves in a fight.
Jacqui has proved her competence. She cast a spell that cause Sandi to see her greatest desire (Faith naked) to leave her indisposed then disguised herself as Sandi, and a tree as herself. The end result is her esper opponent flying head on into said tree and Sandi naked and dry humping a different tree.
In tune with the core CMHB trope, Tiff might be a Cloudcuckoolander, but she seems to have some genuine skills and knowledge in there.
The "moron" part of this word is debatable, but Cerise is a competent summoner. Too bad the fans are more concerned with her getting her Laser-Guided Karma to care right now.
And finally we have Melissa who caused a level nine magical event, which has the Artemis staff a little on edge. News of it left their normally calm composed teacher at a near loss for words.
Mel even took on Rain without using magick and won.
Dakota when stabbing Anastasia in the back with a magical sword she was certain would kill her didn't. Shortly after it's Anastasia's turn when she gets distracted by Melissa, looks away, and looks back only to find herself staring down the barrel of Dakota's magically charged flintlock. She only has enough time to get out "Oh sh—" before Dakota shoots her in the face. Twice.
At the start of the comic, Melissa has a dream helping a little girl get a cat out of a tree with her with her magic. She was horrified upon awakening. When she faces a similar situation on the way to her new school, she responds by making the tree grow.
Cerise: Mel?! That was mean! Even for you! Melissa: I'll explain later.
Driven to Suicide: When forcefully combined into one person and the resulting clash of moralities and personalities occured the only thing Dakota and Anastasia could agree on was to kill themselves. The thing that stopped them once they had the noose around their neck was noticing the early signs of, and confirming, their being pregnant with Melissa.
Dynamic Entry: Tiffany enters and exits with a smoke bomb when she's doing the MMAA thing.
Enemy Mine: Tandy and Sandi have more or less adopted this stance with regard to Mel being their new student council president, even though she's half witch. Because they need her in order to save Artemis from Cerise and Melissa can't save the school without their help.
Giz: Fairly quick. We saw that there was an immediate interest in them when we posted the chapter break image for "See no evil." They hadn't even spoken, and the interest was there.
Everyone Is Bi: At least to some degree. Or gay. It has been implied to be the result of Faith's subconscious connection to the school, remaking it in her image.
Evil Costume Switch: When Brainwashed and Crazy by Cerise, the Artemis Academy students' uniforms are given an inverted color scheme, resulting in a mostly black outfit. When Melissa uses the Wand to restore one of them to normal, the color scheme also returns to normal.
From Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we have Tiffany Winters (of Buffy Summers herself); time will tell if Dusky (Tiff's brother) is really an expy of Dawn (Buffy's sister), or just a minor character with a bit of a pun in his name.
From Ranma ½, we have Ash, of Ranma himself. His sister is one of female Ranma.
The first story arc includes the three having their skirts shot off.
Ranmaexpy Ash getting his shirt 'cut' off helping give some balance.
And then Faith tips the scale back for the male audience by seemingly projecting herself nudenote save for some strategically placed maple leaves, in commemoration of Canada Day onto the schoolyard, unnoticed by all except Sandi. Which turns out to be an illusion created by one of Jacqui's glamour spells, which causes whoever it's cast on to see their deepest desire.
Averted by the use of Modesty Shorts by Rain in her duel with Mel, though as a physical combatant, it would make a lot of sense for her too.
Faith is extraordinarily gifted, very powerful, extremely popular, and is so hot that even her enemies lust after her. As you can imagine, she's dangerously self-confident and has a pretty big ego. It eventually gets deflated. See the This Cannot Be! entry on her character sheet.
Rain underestimates her opponents, like in Melissa's case, where she was certain she could defeat her so long as she didn't give her time to cast any spells. And wound up flat on her back, seconds later. She's also a Sore Loser, as evidenced when she makes a show of challenging Mel to a rematch in front of the entire school. Except that didn't work out for her either.
Fish out of Water: The Hellrune Coven is accustomed to becoming popular by impressing boys. When they end up in an all girls school, they don't have a clue on how they are going to rise up the social ladder.
Recent indications are that Cerise is bi (she was really, really into kissing Callie) and Callie is either straight or just finds the idea of having someone into her really awkward. Likewise, Skye didn't mind the short kiss Cerise gave her, either, so possibly Cerise might becoming more acceptable with being bi.
This appears to be one of Faith's esper powers to some kind of extent based off how Tiff ended up having to very suddenly snap herself back to reality after Faith began to sweet talk her. She's obviously doing something to affect Tiff's train of thought and this would certainly explain Sandi's behavior. But it may be relevant to ask why Tiffany has "Les Yay tendencies". Did she behave the way she did with Layla because Faith has been conditioning her to behave that way when dealing with a powerful, attractive female?
Mel seems just as susceptible to it when Faith really concentrates on her; Faith doesn't appear to have much difficulty removing a target's inhibitions to make it fairly easy to do what she wants with them.
Layla likens being around Faith to being on a sugar buzz.
Jerk Ass: Mel is still thinking like the Alpha Bitch, despite the new school, although she may grow out of this. Faith seems to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing variant of this, hazing all three girls on their first day for no readily apparent reason and smirking the whole time.
Know When to Fold 'Em: Faith and Tiffany may be two of the toughest girls at Artemis Academy, but they still know when it's best to haul ass.
Memory Gambit: The Hellrune coven was sent to Artemis Academy by the principal of Charybdis High school to spy on the monster hunters, not just to punish them. Part of their cover involved erasing their memories of their actual mission until it was time for them to report.
The Mole: Subverted. There actually is a mole, but he's harmless. The real leak is Faith's habit of talking in her sleep. Not so subverted with Mel, Cerise, and Jacqui, who are all unwitting Charybdis High School sleeper agents.
Melissa was loyal to you before you saw the wand, then what did you do? You went ballistic and shrank her down. It happened to be where pixie dust was, too. Well, it wasn't like turning Mel into a pixie would bypass the Power Incontinence problem she had that forced the wand to be separated from her, right? Or turn her into a Cute WitchMagical Girl, Right? It did Both AND put Mel's loyalties to you in jeopardy in the process too?!? Whoops...
Not Himself: Skye after listening to a mysterious voice and going through a doorway. Before she was rather timid and gentle. But upon crashing a party thrown for Callista, she's voluptuous and threatening (if only in a playful way).
Not-So-Harmless Villain: Jacqui had been shown using simple glamors and such until her duel (save only for one point apparently charging up an offensive spell). Then she goes and shows that illusions can be quite useful in combat.
"Not Wearing Pants" Dream: Melissa has a dream where she's about to present a report in front of the class in her underwear. She does not mind though, until she changes into a Magical Girl outfit, which she finds really embarrassing.
Obfuscating Stupidity: Jacqui is showing signs of this. The fact that no one (not even the fans) can really tell how true it is might just go to show you how good she is at it.
Panty Shot: Considering the shortness of those skirts, not too surprising. Given that the main characters are a couple of years older than most of the EC cast, the artists may feel a bit more free to do this.
Pet the Dog: Faith has generally been portrayed as a Smug Super with questionable moral boundaries When Melissa taps into the school's power and it goes out of control, however, Faith seems genuinely concerned for her well-being. Though she swipes the wand and forfeits the match to conceal the theft, once she's sure Mel is safe.
When Mel wakes up in the infirmary, Jacqui and Cerise are there, and seem to be genuinely glad that she's better.
Faith got another one by tending to Tiffany, following the Layla incident. The conversation afterward was rather candid for a manipulative young woman like Faith and seems to suggests her new found respect and attraction to Tiffany are genuine.
Roof Hopping: Used by Tiff. And she got a Wand-controlled Mel to join her (though this is Tiff thinking Mel's good enough she's doing it in her sleep).
Running Gag: The whole little girl and the cat in the tree, comes to a head when she winds up meeting her in real life. Mel decides to finally just get the cat down from the tree...only for the "girl" to fade away and leave her stuck with the cat.
Scenery Censor: Onscreen nudity is kept to a minimum. In what few instances there are, the comic maintains its PG-13 rating by cleverly concealing all naughty bits with foreground objects, the characters hair, or speech balloons.
Schoolgirl Lesbian: Cerise is convinced that this will be their fate in this all-girls school; given the wink one of the girls gives her while she says it, she might already have an admirer.
Sandi has a galaxy-sized crush on Student Council President, Faith.
The splash page for Chapter 5 shows that there seem to a large number of lesbian couples at the school.
There seems to be very few actual lesbians, but a lot of bisexuality. Except for the coven lampshading it on their first arrival, this is treated as wholly unremarkable.
Skye is hinted with potential to be one, especially after taking in excess Evil to save Cerise.
Smooch of Victory: Played with as not only was Faith not the hero this time around, but she has to go fishing for it. Regardless, once she does Tiffany does so with no resistance. Cue the collective "D'aaaaaaaw" from the majority of the fans.
Take a Third Option: Hekate believed Melissa would kill Cerise (and break the Wand's influence over her permanently) or Cerise would kill Melissa (and definitively prove she's the rightful successor to the Coven). The Ninja Club through Rain (disguised as Skye) decides to take Cerise out first with "Skye" doing a Back Stab on Cerise first, possibly leaving Melissa's hands clean of this.
Take Off Your Clothes: Cerise asks Brooke for dating tips with girls (despite being straight; it's solely to get more popular at the all-girl school). Brooke thus drags Cerise to her bedroom and asks her to strip; Cerise obeys, despite being convinced that they'll end up having lesbian sex — but in truth, Brooke just wants her to model for some nude painting.
Tempting Fate: While Melissa grouses about Cerise's Starscreaming, she takes comfort in the fact that being at an all-girls school means that Jacqui won't be distracted by boys. Cue (male) Hot Teacher.
Also, in his initial appearance, Ash tries to taunt Faith with, "No one...can lay a hand on me." He only gets past "on" before Jacqui lays TWO hands on him—as well as two arms and a cheek as she GLOMPshim.
Rain said she'd dye her hair before she loses to Mel (who couldn't tell the difference between judo and kung-fu). She goes a dark black hair and tries to be what Dark Skye wants in their latest appearance.
Tiff: Looks it's up to I, Tiffany Winters, to save the day!
Time for Plan B: What Faith resorts to after getting a earful of Jacqui's ditziness.
Faith: Sandi! We're moving to Plan B! Sandi: Is-Isn't that dangerous? Faith: Life is dangerous, Sandi! Embrace Life!
Too Dumb to Live: Faith might be The Ace of her school, but stumbled on the idea that left the main cloudcuckoolander of the series stunned with round eyes, flatly saying "You're Insane!" and then rephrasing it. She deliberately berserks a vampire and then attempts to engage her in hand-to-hand combat in a spur-of-the-moment decision. Which would have gotten her killed if Tiffany hadn't intervened to save her and calm Layla down.
Two Beings, One Body: As a result of the rift Queen Obscuria and Musical Starlight were fighting in collapsing around them, it put them in a composite body with both minds going through Villainous Breakdown and Heroic BSOD as each felt what the other had at that point.
Underestimating Badassery: Tiffany is largely treated as an incompetent buffoon by pretty much everyone who knows her. However, while she is a little overzealous and ditzy, she does show some signs of being a genuine threat. She's strong, athletic, has good supernatural senses, nearly beat Cerise in their combat training (only to get timed out), and even managed to calm down a berserk Layla. This doesn't go unnoticed by Melissa, who tries to tell the Principal of Charydbis. The Principal, however, dismisses her concerns and the matter is dropped. Time will tell if this will come back to bite her later.
Unwitting Pawn: Callista and Skye to Cerise, who's using Skye's admiration of herto toy with Callista's affections for her, all so she can rise to the top of Artemis's social order. Only problem was, at Callie's birthday party, Skye returns to to challenge Callie for Skye. Skye trumps Cerise by stripping in front of everyone when told she can't be in rags, kisses Cerise with enough to leave her stunned and speaking incoherently, and finally using a chipmunk to chew through Callie's bow—to set Callie up to be eaten by a pack of wolves. Then to vanish on the back of one of them after Faith foils her. Making Cerise wonder just what Skye did to her back there.
Urban Fantasy: The story is set in a modernish environment. There isn't a lot of Magitek, but magic in general is pretty common.
Vain Sorceress: All three of the primary trio, and it turns out their goddess is pretty much the goddess of vain sorceresses; she gets paid tribute with beautiful designer dresses.
The Vamp: A pseudo-example seems to be Faith's main ability.
Melissa: Did you know they teach a class on hunting witches here? I never wanted to know my own burning point!
Who's Laughing Now?: Cerise seems to be headed that way after drinking a bit of pure black magick (that was meant for Mel to break the Wand's hold on her)... though given how nonchalant Hekate is reacting to it...
Cerise: I'll show NGG the world... ...Just how powerful a witch can be!!!
Witch Species: Though the differences are not immediately visible, witches are dissimilar to other spell casters. The principal of Charybdis Heights describes them as having the same cursed, cryptid blood that other "monsters" such as the ones at her school possess and the Artemis monster hunters intend to kill.