The Girls of Virtue is a Web Original novel written by Elizabeth Collins. Its first chapter was published in late 2018, and new chapters have been added periodically since. The novel is still in progress, and new chapters are uploaded to the series' blog
, when finished.
The story opens on a girl waking up in the middle of a fog-covered field, with no memory of who she is or how she got there. The girl soon meets the world's other inhabitants; a group of monstrous young women who call themselves the Girls of Virtue. These girls appear to be living caricatures of the worst parts of human nature, and bear names like Cruelty, Vanity, and Obsession, which they more than live up to. Beginning, as the girl without memories is soon named, grows increasingly disturbed by these others girls as she learns to live in their world, even more so when she learns what their leader is planning. Judgement, an egotistical, power-hungry young woman who believes she decides who lives and dies, intends to create a bridge into the world of humans, sending her followers into the other world to kill the humans that she sees as unworthy.
This story provides examples of:
- Always Chaotic Evil: Every one of the Girls of Virtue shown so far has been nasty at absolute best. Judgement is by far the worst offender, but even the more polite girls, like Jealousy and Hysteria, are all-around terrible people.
- Beauty Is Bad: Despite their monstrous features, many of the Girls are attractive. Selfishness is most notable, but Judgement, Hysteria, and Obsession are good-looking as well.
- Creepy Cathedral: Judgement makes her home in a particularly nasty one, complete with horrific gargoyles, blood-red stained glass, and carvings of scenes of execution and torture. Considering her taste for dramatics and sever god complex, this is almost definitely intentional.
- Debut Queue: In [02], the majority of the characters are introduced in succession. The only one missing is Judgement, who doesn't make her formal appearance until [04], despite many hints regarding her presence.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Judgement is full of this. Most notably, it's heavily implied that she has killed off anyone in the World of Fog who displeases her... and will continue to do so. Made worse by the fact that her go-to method of murder is burning people alive. In [04], she threatens to do the same to Beginning for "not showing enough conviction".
- Establishing Character Moment: Many. Almost all of the Girls have one during their introductions.
- Judgement is introduced in the midst of her Creepy Cathedral, surrounded by blood-red fire and sitting on a throne. A terrifying start to the Big Bad of the story.
- Jealousy's first line involves her telling the others to be quiet and pay attention, quickly establishing her as one of the leaders of the Girls.
- One of Cruelty's first lines is "I look forward to making you cry." That says a lot.
- Vanity's first words are to comment on how ugly the rest of the Girls are, and the first paragraph describing her focuses heavily on how beautiful and doll-like she is.
- Negativity spends her first lines viciously insulting the others, and continues to do so for the rest of the story. Actually, that's pretty much all she does.
- Manipulation's sweet words combined with her horrifying appearance quickly hint at her status as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing.
- Cowardly's first scene features her being terrified of Beginning, who's probably the most harmless creature in the World of Fog, hiding behind Selfishness, and picking at her skin until she bleeds.
- Inconsistency's introduction features her yelling, cursing up a storm, and practically attacking Avoidance. A very wild start to a very out of control character.
- Evil Is Hammy: Judgement has a major love for dramatics; her introduction scene involves a Creepy Cathedral, a massive throne, and a pathway of red candles that flicker on at just the perfect moment. Her speech tends to be very hammy as well, and she clearly loves showing off.
- Welcome Episode: [02] serves as one, with Beginning being forcibly recruited into the Girls of Virtue. All of the main characters save the Big Bad are introduced in that chapter as well, and Beginning gets to have her first interactions with many of them.
