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Melissa Foddebrat
- Brainy Brunette: Downplayed. Although Melissa is a great strategist, more emphasis is put on her temper.
- Covert Pervert: Leaning into their Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy dynamic, Melissa can fall into this with Nine. One chapter in particular saw Melissa checking out Nine because she thought he had a nice ass.
- Generic Cuteness: Typically considered to be either plain or even somewhat ugly, but while she has a more angular face than the beautiful Yuri, it's far from bad looking. She's also quite fit, doesn't seem to have bad skin, decent fashion sense and a figure that is feminine without going to extremes. This may be at least partially intentional: the local standard of beauty does not seem to extend to muscle tone on women as they prefer weaker and more submissive women.
- Good Is Not Soft: Calls out the male leads on their hypocrisy and unwanted advances, and she's definitely one of the ruder characters, not to mention that she doesn't have much against beating a lesson or two into the male leads.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: She is the protagonist, and she wields a sword.
- I Am Your Opponent: In Chapter 28, to Peacock.Melissa: I am the cutie villainess, the mighty unstoppable lady, who flaunts her power, wealth, and darkness around! I am... Melissa Foddebrat! From now, I am your rival! I will be protecting Miss Yuri from now on. I won't let a rude guy like you approach her!
- Indulgent Fantasy Segue: Melissa gets a number of these, the first of which is imagining bashing Ian's face in with a glass ashtray.
- Instant Expert: To an extent. Melissa is terrible at magic, but she's phenomenally skilled with a blade. However, given that she's never really trained herself before this, she's only really to the point of being able to hold her own against the likes of Jack and her brother and can't really handle anyone stronger than that even with a magic sword at first.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite her prickly and easily angered demeanor, Melissa proves to be far more empathetic than she lets herself admit. This, of course, gets her into even more trouble.
- Lady and Knight: To Yuri, after she announces herself as Yuri's protector.
- Lady Swearsalot: She can be quite vulgar when angry and is rather surly by default, meaning she swears more than most of the cast, often in quite strong language.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The brash and outspoken Masculine Girl to Nine's cool and calm feminine boy.
- Magically Inept Fighter: Melissa has little to no magic of her own in contrast to her brother, but she's a natural genius with swordsmanship and with the help of a magic sword can hold herself just fine.
- Oblivious to Love: While its somewhat justified by the fact that she's too distracted by the four suitors, it still takes her a long time to realize the depths of Nine's feelings for her.
- Also is this towards Ian once he tries to clean up his act on account of the fact that he's never given her any reason to think that trying to get back into her good graces was anything other than an attempt to continue clinging to the political power that their engagement gave him. And unfortunately for him, when she does posit the option that his feelings changed, she's nearly insulted.
- She fails to realize that Jack has become a Tsundere for her, and interprets her aggressive style of correcting his behavior as her being a tsundere as well. She instead attributes his willingness to help to good lessons on manners and him falling her her bluff about a curse.
- Pimped-Out Dress: Seen wearing a number of elaborate dresses.
- Primary-Color Champion: Downplayed. Melissa, as the protagonist, has yellow eyes and wears some red.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Melissa gives number of these to Ian and Peacock.
- Red Baron: Her exploits in the Demon war get her nicknamed "The Lioness."
- Red Is Heroic: The main character and usually wears at least some red.
- Red Is Violent: Downplayed. Has her threatening moments and often wears clothing at least accented with red.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes: Averted. Although Melissa has gold eyes, she has no aptitude for magic.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The assertive and irritable Tomboy to Yuri’s soft spoken Girly Girl.
- Tsundere: Played with. She acts like a classic Type A (constantly annoyed Jerk with a Heart of Gold who becomes sweeter as she opens up to people), but despite what Jack thinks, she doesn't actually act like this to her objects of actual friendship and affection - her prickly nature is due to her frustration with the misogynistic society around her, she is just nice to people who treat her better.
- The Un-Favourite: Melissa, at a glance. In the opening scene, her father doesn't even look at her when he greets her, and it becomes clear that he favors Jake. However, little cues in his behavior indicate he really wants to get along with her and just doesn't really have any idea how to interact with her.
- Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Melissa is a heroic example. She has yellow eyes, is cunning, and is more than a little rough around the edges.
Yuri Elizabeth
- Adopted into Royalty: Yuri was a commoner, until she was adopted into the Elizabeth family.
- Ambiguously Gay: It only becomes more and more clear over time that Yuri is annoyed, repulsed or outright afraid of her supposed love interests and absolutely adores Melissa, which is in part because she's willing to walk straight up to guys like Ian and Jake and tell them they're being little shits. The nature of her affection is quite ambiguous, however, but is strongly suggested to be romantic love. Even if it's not, she's clearly upset in a quiet way when Melissa and Nine start growing closer.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: She becomes deeply attached to Melissa because she freed her from her Unwanted Harem and gave her a way out of her predestined life as a romantic lead.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Nine is the only man not part of her Unwanted Harem that she's frosty towards because of Melissa's growing affection towards him.
- Everyone Loves Blondes: Yuri has blonde-white hair and is the center of an Unwanted Harem.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Yuri has been forced to live through the novel's plot over and over again, including the annoying sub stories. That's why she's so delighted to see the new Melissa; she's charming in her own right, but she's also driving a wrecking ball right through all the plot shenanigans Yuri thought inevitable. Yuri doesn't even understand the appeal of the original story, at one point noting her confusion that in-story the slightly childish Melissa is always treated like a terrible monster. Melissa is finally able to break the cycle by destroying Baal, allowing Yuri to live her own life separate from the story.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Yuri has white-blonde hair and is one of the kindest characters in the series if you're not a member of her Unwanted Harem.
- Important Haircut: She ends up cutting off her wavy hair to a shorter one to shake off a persistent fan, but it also symbolizes that Yuri is now free from the constraints of the original story and now is able to choose her own path as a Grand Mage.
- Incompatible Orientation: Implicitly on the wrong end of it. Her affection for Melissa isn't directly stated to be romantic in nature, but definitely has all the signs. Unfortunately, Melissa seems pretty straight and her love interest is the pretty werewolf she picked up. Yuri is quite depressed when she notices the situation.
- Innocent Blue Eyes: Yuri, although the extent she can be called innocent is debatable.
- Lady and Knight: The Lady to Melissa's knight.
- Jerkass to One: Downplayed. The only other individual not part of her Unwanted Harem that she tends to be more ambivalent towards is Nine (which is mutual on his end), mainly because of them sharing affections toward Melissa. However, the two can still act relatively civil and even mutually agree on things for Melissa's sake.
- Mystical White Hair: Has white-blonde hair and was adopted into the Elizabeths, a family with uncontested magical skill.
- Pimped-Out Dress: Wears elaborate dresses.
- Primary-Color Champion: A major character, has blue eyes and usually wears blue.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to Jake about how being a Stalker with a Crush is not romantic and won't make her fall in love with him.
- Stepford Smiler: Yuri appears as a Stock Shoujo Heroine, with angelic features and overwhelming kindness. However, it slowly becomes clear that she finds the possessive and clingy ways of the male characters exhausting and is just too polite and passive to remark on it (although she at one point almost cusses Peacock). She's revealed to be even more broken than she lets on when it becomes clear she knows she's trapped in a romance story, turning her passiveness more into reluctant acceptance over her situation.
- True Blue Femininity: Yuri has blue eyes and is often seen wearing blue.
- Unwanted Harem: A female example. Yuri is not fond of any of the male leads and for good reason.
- Wham Line: While Yuri already demonstrated Stepford Smiler tendencies, the end of chapter 35 reveals that she knows more about her role as a romance heroine than she lets on.Yuri: Every day is so much fun thanks to lady Melissa. That's why I'm hopeful. Hopeful that this time I just might be able to escape from this hellish curse.
Nine
- Anger Born of Worry: He gets upset with Melissa over a plan to allow Peacock to poison her to get him arrested for attempted murder even though it's not nearly as risky as it sounds. It takes some outside assistance for Melissa to understand why he's so upset.
- Ascended Extra: An In-Universe example. Yuri reveals Nine was meant to die a beggar in the streets and never meant to be involved in the story in any way. Here, because Melissa saved him, he survives and becomes her servant, getting involved in the plot in the process.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Nine is a gentle soul by default, but his awakening involved him almost killing his brother after he badly injures Melissa during their fight, only stopping because of Melissa intervening.
- Crush Blush: Prone to blushing around Melissa.
- Cute Mute: Before his tongue is healed.
- Dude Looks Like a Lady: Prettiest member of the cast? Nine Photon, hands down. He also has the cutest body language.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: In general, Nine usually has his hair tied up while Mizen has his hair loose or slicked back.
- Irony: In the past, Jack used to torment and bully the weaker Nine. After Nine achieves an awakening, Nine is now stronger than him and Jack has to comply to his demands.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Nine assumes Melissa's declaration that she will protect Yuri is a declaration of love and resigns himself to living with unrequited feelings.
- Jerkass to One: While generally kind to all people (save for being rather ambivalent toward Yuri, which is mutual on her end), he doesn't extend the same courtesy toward Jack or Mizen, especially after he's awakened and knowing he's now technically stronger than both of them. To be fair, both contributed to a lot of suffering in his past before he met Melissa.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Nine has long hair he usually keeps tied back and is noticeably attractive.
- Luminescent Blush: Often sports a blush when embarrassed or flustered.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The polite and generally gentle feminine boy to Melissa's aggressive and rude masculine girl.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Werewolves have a tendency to be brutes, but Nine Photon is an extremely gentle person who never fit in with them. He's also shown to be intelligent and skilled, being able to assist Melissa in both domestic and with her duties as a duke.
- Polar Opposite Twins: He and his brother Mizen could not be anymore different.
- Pretty Boy: He has long hair and several characters comment on his attractiveness.
- Primary-Color Champion: He's a major character with blue hair.
- Shrinking Violet: Meek and soft-spoken.
- Shy Blue-Haired Girl: Gender Inverted. Blue haired and a Shrinking Violet.
- Tongue Trauma: His tongue was cut out when he was exiled from the werewolf territory, so he ends up using writing to communicate for a good portion of Part 1 until Yuri is able to restore both his tongue and fangs.
- The Un-Favourite: Was dismissed as a failure while his twin was held up as the golden standard of werewolves. This treatment was so prolonged that he came to take it as a given that anyone would disdain him.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: He's able to change between a human and a wolf form at will.
- Wonderful Werewolf: A sweet werewolf intensely loyal towards Melissa.
Yona Whitefall
- A Day in the Limelight: The second special arc focuses on Yona's backstory as a saint prior to her becoming a maid for the Foddebrat family.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Yona has many talents and abilities, which is why Melissa keeps her around, but will only do things if she's getting paid for it and can otherwise be rather apathetic. She developed these skills after escaping from the temple in order to support herself.
- Creator's Favorite: In-Universe, Melissa speculates that the "love" that the creator god feels for Yona is something similar to being an author's favorite character.
- Dark and Troubled Past: It's revealed in Chapter 77 that she was "beloved" by the creator god, despite her own desires, and that people came to call her "Saintess Yona" because of it. However, she became so disgusted by the circumstances that she ran away from the church. Her focus arc also details how she was essentially imprisoned at the temple since childhood due to her saintess status and she was only able to escape being trapped there for the rest of her life due to a Black Sheep member of the Elizabeths.
- Divine Date: It's revealed that she is favored and "beloved" by the god-like being that controls the world. However, she is not happy about this.
- Hidden Depths: While noted for her incredible greed concerning money, the real reason Yona wants said money in the first place is not out of personal greed but rather to pay off the bail for the person that helped her escape from the temple to reduce his indefinite sentence to ten years. She's aware that she may never be able to pay it off in her lifetime, but does everything she can to make it a reality regardless.
- Impoverished Patrician: The Whitefall noble family fell into immense debt, which is why Yona is working as a maid and does everything in her power to get money. However, the real reason for her desire to obtain a lot of money is actually not related to her family but for someone she owes a debt to for saving her from a miserable life as a saintess.
- Nay-Theist: She states that she is an atheist, while fully aware that there is a god-like being in their world. But she knows full well how much of a 'bastard' he is, so her belief makes sense. It may be one reason why Yona assists Melissa, who is throwing the original story off script.
- Odd Friendship: Yona is actually on friendly terms with Yuri, who they met sometime prior to the events of the story.
- Only in It for the Money: Yona's main motivation.Yona: How could you take in a beggar when you should be looking for a new dress? I just -
Melissa: Quadruple raise.
Yona: I just completely agree with you! How could I possibly stop you from helping those in need? You're truly the example of noblesse oblige! - Secret Identity: She's actually the saint, a person loved by the god, granting her oracles whether she likes it or not. Her distaste for this led her to escaping the temple and later becoming a maid.
Ian Basillos
- Hopeless Suitor: After Melissa finally gets through to him, he clearly falls in love with her and just as clearly immediately realizes he has no shot at all anymore. Surprisingly, he still remains very supportive of her even though it won't benefit him at all.
- Jerkass Realization: He and Melissa spend part of a festival together after spending months arguing. As a little joke, she puts a toy tiara on his head and gets seriously angry at how humiliated he feels about it, calling him out on how disrespectful it is towards half the population to take offense at being put in a woman's role. He starts behaving more respectfully and also takes his crown prince duties more seriously from here, though Melissa doesn't really notice since he already burned that bridge long ago.
- Ladykiller in Love: He's The Casanova, but falls head over heels for Yuri. It's deconstructed in that his constant philandering has left him with no knowledge of how to actually appreciate women for more than their looks, which means he has no idea how to actually court Yuri without turning her away with his shallow affection. He gets better and realizes just how unfair he's been to his actual fiancé by pursuing other women, but by that point, that bridge has been well and truly burned.
- Prince Charmless: A self-absorbed prince who cheats on Melissa multiple times. He does get better on this following Melissa's "The Reason You Suck" Speech, although it does nothing to really change Melissa's opinion of him.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Ian has black hair and pale skin, and is attractive enough to easily keep cheating on Melissa with multiple women.
- Reformed, but Rejected: Makes a genuine attempt to clean up his act after the festival, but his hopes that this will let him win back Melissa's feelings are clearly in vain due to how thoroughly he'd burnt that bridge with his prior actions. In fact Melissa just considers the fact that he continues to cling to their engagement to be another source of irritation. Some years later in the epilogue they do seem to have a reasonably friendly relationship.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The receiving end of a number of these. The one Melissa gives him at the night market does get through to him and he starts improving from there.
- Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: A golden-eyed hypocrite. Although he does improve starting in the latter half of the series.
Jake Foddebrat
- Companion Cube: Utterly devastated when his gun Monica breaks, and even digs it a grave.
- Cold Sniper: A loner and a sniper for the royal family.
- Curtains Match the Window: His eyes and hair are both pale blue.
- Heel Realization: He didn't even realize that he was just a stalker because he had no bad intentions whatsoever. Melissa reverses the situation on him: She expends all the mana she has in her body (which as it turns out isn't a lot and would forever leave her bereft of it) to have him temporarily cursed into a powerless rabbit and then chases him around while assuring him she's just there to keep him safe from all the dangers out there. Obviously, he runs away in terror, and when the curse fades he points out that how terrifying this experience was...which in turn both Melissa and Yuri tell him that this is exactly how Yuri feels about him. Taking the point immediately, he stops following her and even starts behaving protective towards Melissa without being a creep about it.
- I Call It "Vera": Named his gun Monica.
- Icy Blue Eyes: A Cold Sniper with the eyes to match.
- Innocently Insensitive: He legitimately didn't know his treatment of Yuri constituted stalking as he believed he bore her no ill will. It's only when Melissa puts him in Yuri's shoes that he realizes just how creepy he came across.
- Irony: He's allergic to dogs and by extension werewolves. His sister ends up marrying a werewolf.
- No Social Skills: Doesn't understand why he should care about Melissa being upset until she threatens him. It's implied to also be why he ended up stalking Yuri and doesn't recognize what he was doing counted as stalking until Melissa and Yuri teaches him a lesson about it the hard way.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Receives one from Yuri.
- Stalker with a Crush: He always follows Yuri around from the shadows in case she gets in danger since he loves her, Melissa even catching him taking sneaky photographs of her at the night market. But... this is just stalking and neither Melissa nor Yuri appreciate it. To his credit, when he realizes he's being a creep he decides to be more open, and when he, of course, fails to win Yuri over since she rightfully tells him she's not interested in him and never will be "because" of his stalking, he accepts the rejection and moves on from his crush, his lesson fully learned.Yuri: Normally, people like to think they should protect cute and weak things. The problem is, they never ask said weak things if they want protection.
- Walking the Earth: After Melissa becomes the next Duke Foddebrat, he goes off traveling on his own, though he does send one-word letters to his sister whenever he reaches a new place to let her know of how he's doing.
Jack Photon
- Amazon Chaser: Jack shows signs that he's at least somewhat attracted to Melissa for her strong will and ability to smack him around with her sword.
- Ambiguously Brown: Jack Photon. His race is never specified (and he's a werewolf at that), but he's darker than the rest of the cast.
- Character Development: While not to the same extent as Jake or Ian, he does start showing some improvements in his behavior after Mizen is dealt with. He displays more independence and thoughtfulness, even becoming an advocate for Melissa towards the werewolves. He also shows more true bravery rather than simple recklessness.
- Curtains Match the Window: Dark red eyes and hair.
- Irony: Jack is one of the four love interests for Yuri and he never really had any strong ties to Melissa in the original novel. He never shows much attention toward Yuri in the story if any because Melissa saving Nine leads to events that cause Jack to develop an interest for Melissa instead.
- Red Is Violent: Has red hair and eyes, and by far is the most aggressive member of the cast.
- Tsundere: Describes Melissa as not his type while acting attracted to her, and at one point tells her she's always welcome in the forest—not that he wants her to visit or anything.
Peacock Melody
- Abduction Is Love: Kidnapped Yuri in the novel out of love.
- Animal Motifs: Birds. His name, his messenger bird, he cages Yuri like a bird, and he even calls her his canary.
- Bastard Bastard: He's an illegitimate child and perhaps the worst of Yuri's suitors.
- Commonality Connection: One of the reasons he thinks he and Yuri should be together is because both of them were born commoners only to rise to nobility unexpectedly. It's all they have in common as, after adoption, Yuri remained a Nice Girl. Peacock became an Entitled Bastard.
- Compete for the Maiden's Hand: Melissa shoots him down before he can propose this, pointing out that Yuri is a person and not a prize to be won. She does however play a game of wits of him to force Peacock to leave the Elizabeth estate.
- Green and Mean: A green-haired unwanted suitor that Melissa fears will kidnap Yuri (which he does in the novel).
- Hate Sink:
- Although all of Yuri's potential suitors are frankly awful, Peacock takes the cake for being the worst of the bunch being a manipulative, kidnapping Yandere, and unlike the other three never shows any signs of even minor improvement from there. Later gets acknowledged by Melissa herself who admits that she considers Peacock to easily the be the worst of the four.
- Ian, Jake, and Jack later on at least get some form of Character Development and Heel Realization on their ends for how their actions were affecting those around them. Peacock is a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk through and through.
- Informed Attribute: Actually discussed by Melissa. Peacock in the story is called a genius mastermind. However, Melissa notes even in the novel, Peacock never showed any signs of intelligence, and this is solidified by how easily he fell for a trap she set up. In conclusion, Melissa thinks Peacock was a character only claimed to be intelligent because of the author's limits to writing his character. Later, he doesn't ever consider the possibility of Melissa knowing there's a spy in her household, and Melissa ultimately plays him like a fiddle by feigning obliviousness to his plans and letting him try to murder her to secure his arrest.
- Irony: In the real world, previously Melissa loved Peacock's character. Meeting him in the story however leads her to hate him and do everything in her power to keep him separated from Yuri to the point that he tries to straight up kill her.
- Love Makes You Evil: According to Melissa, his violent behavior towards Yuri stems from his love for her.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Melissa constantly getting between him and Yuri leads to Peacock deciding to poison her. However, Melissa anticipated this happening and had Yuri prepare a universal antidote ahead of time so she can get Peacock arrested for attempted murder of a duke's daughter to both stop him from harassing Yuri further and acquire his fortune for herself.
- The Rich Have White Stuff: A billionaire that often wears white.
- Secondary Color Nemesis: A green-haired Yandere.
- Yandere: Invoked. In the original novel, Peacock kidnaps Yuri out of love and is willing to do anything that gets in the way of her. Melissa uses this to her advantage because she knows that he acted out of love to get him to poison her at a tea party so he'll get arrested.
Mizen Photon
- Ax-Crazy: Considers removing multiple limbs to be letting people off lightly.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: In-Universe. Mizen was a much more popular villain character than Melissa in the original story, supposedly because of how shameless he was about his villainy.
- Evil Twin: Specifically, Nine’s sadistic older twin.
- Identical Twin ID Tag: Wears his hair loose while Nine’s is tied up or generally styled, although he changes into a suit and ties his hair back to mess with Nine before their fight. After the fight, he also wears his bangs pulled back to be easier to distinguish at a glance.
- It Amused Me: Does whatever he thinks is fun, which generally involves tormenting others.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: All the description provided to his appearance in the original novel, which is how Melissa failed to immediately realize who he resembled.
- Obviously Evil: Melissa describes him as blatantly advertising that his personality is trash.
- Slasher Smile: Sports one for most of his talk with Nine.
- Sore Loser: After being subjugated by Melissa, he acts difficult and even childish to take slights at her in whatever way he can when next they meet to where he doesn't want to get involved in Baal's awakening due to said grudge against her and more or less has to get strong-armed into it.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In a sense. He was supposed to be killed by Jack, but when Nine awakens instead, Melissa has him spare Mizen not out of any concern for Mizen’s life, but to keep Nine from living with the guilt.
- Worthy Opponent: Gets excited to see Nine awaken and act aggressive and hostile, even if all that hostility is aimed at him.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: He's able to change between a human and a wolf form at will.
