History Webcomic / ImTheQueenInThisLife

* PsychopathicWomanchild: Grand Duchess Lariessa de Valois. She lived her entire life in the shadow of her more accomplished and prettier deceased older sister, which resulted in her being extremely insecure and socially awkward. However, it also results in her latching onto anyone who showed her a scrap of attention and instantly reaching {{Yandere}} levels of infatuation to the point of planning murder and endangering political situations.

* AmputativeSentencing: Subverted, since it's not a total amputation, but after Zanobi almost kills Ariadne during the hunting competition, the cardinal orders to cut the tendons in all his limbs.

** This is Ariadne's MO in general: earlier, she convinces a famous boutique to grant Lucrezia a rebate in order to lure her into messing around with ledgers again, and to expose her to the cardinal.

** Ariadne is also not averse to using those, especially against Isabella.

** When stumbling onto the scene of what she intially assumes to be rape, Isabella actually plans either scream or bring some help, until she realizes it's just some pair having consensual sex.

* FamilyEyeResemblance: Ariadne and Arabella have green eyes like their father. Ippolito and Isabella, have the purple eyes of their mother, [[spoiler: but it turns out Ippolito is not really the cardinal's son, while Isabella's parentage remains ambiguously unadressed.]]

* FlowerMotif: In the first timeline Ariadne is compared by Cesare to a lily of the valley, a common flower found everywhere that seems to be bowing, "but will never be as cherished as the rose that blooms in a greenhouse" as Isabella notes. In the second timeline Cesare sents Ariadne roses along with other presents.

* TheMarvelousDeer: In both timelines Cesare was obsessed with killing the legendary golden stag, since slaying it made one destined to become the king. In the second timeline he and Ariadne encounter it after Cesare rescues her during the hunting competition, [[spoiler: but, surprisingly, Cesare gives up on killing it to make sure Ariadne comes back safely to the camp]].

* BlackAndGrayMorality: Hardly anyone, save for a handful of characters, could be called good in this story. Ariadne is a scheming, vindictive ManipulativeBitch who had been a full blown villainess in her first life, while her opponents are her equally scheming and vindictive stepmother and half-sister, her power-hungry ex-BastardBoyfriend, PsychopathicWomanchild

* PsychopathicWomanchild: Lariessa de Valois. She lived her entire life in the shadow of her more accomplished and prettier deceased older sister, which resulted in her being extremely insecure and socially awkward. However, it also results in her latching onto anyone who showed her a scrap of attention and instantly reaching {{Yandere}} levels of infatuation to the point of planning murder and endangering political situations.

** Later the cardinal banishes Lucrezia from his house [[spoiler: for attempting to perform magic ritual]] in fear she would eventually attract the attention of the Inquisition and cause their entire family to be burned at stake.

* TheMarvelousDeer: In both timelines Cesare was obsessed with killing the legendary golden stag, since slaying it made one destined to become the king. In the second timeline both him and Ariadne encounter it after Cesare rescues her during the hunting competition, [[spoiler: but, surprisingly, Cesare gives up on killing it to make sure Ariadne comes back safely to the camp]].

* WickedStepmother: Lucrezia is instantly abusive towards Ariadne.

* Myth/ClassicalMythology: In addition to real life historical figures, some characters are also inspired by characters from Greek myths, most notably Ariadne, who shares some traits with both her namesake and Medea, women spurned by men they helped.

* OrderedToDie: [[spoiler: After Lucrezia's order to kill Maletta results in the death of another girl, the cardinal, to avoid a scandal and compensate the girl's father, orders Lucrezia to drink poison. She does it, after realizing if she lives longer she would be forced to confess about Ippolito being a bastard.]]

* EvilRedhead: Cesare and his mother. Also Maletta, but averted with her sister, Sancha.

* [[TheSpanishInquisition The Inquisition]]: Makes an appearance in chapter 12 to arrest Alejandro, "the Apostle of Asserto", for his heretical teachings.

* SheKnowsTooMuch: Lucrezia orders [[spoiler: Maletta]] to be killed after realizing she [[spoiler: overheard the discussion regarding Lucrezia's infidelity and one of her children being a bastard]].

** Averted with blonde [[BitchInSheepsClothing Isabella]], who makes her first entrance wearing a cream wedding dress and ordering Ariadne's murder. She also consistently wears light colors (aside from mourning) in the second timeline.
** In a similar vein to Isabella, Ariadne is introduced wearing a white gown when she poisons Alfonso in the first timeline.

* YouAreGrounded: The cardinal orders Isabella to be confined to her rooms for a long time for Ariadne's hunting accident.

* AmputativeSentencing: Not a total amputation, but after Zanobi almost kills Ariadne during the hunting competition, the cardinal orders to cut the tendons in all his limbs.

* HuntingAccident: Isabella asks her cousin, Zanobi, to "teach Ariadne a lesson" during hunting, leaving her words up for interpretation. After a brief verbal spat with Ariadne, Zanobi shoots a crossbow bolt into her horse's rear, causing it to run off a cliff, but Ariadne is rescued by Cesare.

* BreakingSpeech: Isabella delivers such a brutal one to Ariadne just before her death, it still weighs on Ariadne's mind in the second timeline to the point of inducing an eating disorder.

* DoubleInLawMarriage: In the first timeline Alfonso and Cesare, half-brothers, are married/engaged to Isabella and Ariadne, half-sisters.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The entire setting, including names, fashions, characters and events, is explicitly based off Renaissance era Europe. Etruscan Kingdom is Italy, Gallico is France, Moorish Empire seems to be either North Africa or Moorish Spain. There are also mentions of "Helenia" and "Ratan Empire" etc.

* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Ariadne is ran through with sword in the first timeline.

** In the second timeline he keeps pining for Ariadne, who constantly rejects his advances, and [[spoiler: despises Isabella, who already slept with him and other men]].

* ArrangedMarriage: All around the place. Most notably, Isabella and Alfonso's in the first timeline, then Alfonso and [[spoiler: Lariessa's]] in the second one. Ariadne and Cesare were similarly arranged to be married by their parents [[spoiler: in both timelines]], but Cesare kept her as his fiancée indefinitely in the first timeline and eventually put her in prison after she started nagging him about it once he became the king, while [[spoiler: Ariadne herself breaks off their engagement in the second timeline]].

** This is Ariadne's MO in general: earlier, she convinces a famous boutique to grant Lucrezia a rebate in order to lure into messing around with ledgers again and to expose her to the cardinal.

* BreakingSpeech: Isabella delivers such a brutal one to Ariadne just before her death, it still weighs on Ariadne's mind in the second timeline.

* MaliciousSlander: Isabella constantly tries undermine other women, particularly her half-sister, by spreading gossip about them.

After more than half a life of scheming, which included incting a rebellion and murdering the crown prince, Ariadne de Mare finally manages to put her longtime fiancé, Cesare, on the throne of the Etruscan Kingdom. However, this hard-earned success does not end in a wedding, as she had hoped, but instead she finds herself thrown in a cell as her older half-sister, and crown princes' widow, Isabella, explains to her [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness she has outlived her usefulness]], before going off to marry Cesare. After getting murdered by Isabella's henchman, Ariadne hears a voice talking to her about a "Golden Rule", and wakes up in the past as a 15 year old girl on the day she was taken to her father's estate in the capital.

** This is Ariadne's MO in general: earlier, she makes one of the famous boutiques grant Lucrezia a rebate in order to lure into messing around with ledgers again and to expose her to the cardinal.

* CainAndAbel: Cesare and Alfonso, and Isabella and Ariadne. Both Alfonso and Ariadne end up dead at the hands of their siblings (technically Ariadne poisoned Alfonso at Cesare's behest) in the first timeline.

* Myth/ClassicalMythology: In addition to real life historical figures, some characters are also inspired by characters from Greek myths, most notably Ariadne, who shares some traits with both her namesake and Medea, women spurned by men whom they helped.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Lucrezia genuinely loves her children. Well, the ones not named Arabella. [[spoiler: Even after she realizes both Ippolito and Isabella forsake her to save their own skin (albeit Isabella, in a rare show of humanity, did seem somewhat conflicted on this issue) and she's forced to drink poison, she still insists Ippolito is cardinal de Mare's legitimate son.]]

** While Cesare made this comparison as a backhanded compliment, he did have some point: lily of the valley is highly poisonous.

** Maletta brags to Ariadne that if she were to have a child with the cardinal, it would have the same social standing as Ariadne. Ariadne internally admits begrudgingly that she has a point. [[spoiler: She later uses Maletta's ambitions by encouraging her relationship with Ippolito, which results in Maletta getting pregnant. Contrary to Maletta's lofty expectations, this gets her thrown out of the de Mare manor and ultimately killed.]]
* FunctionalAddict: Ippolito got addicted to opium during his studies in Padua. Aside from his permanently dark-rimmed eyes, it doesn't seem to affect him much and he later becomes a drug dealer in San Carlo.

* INeverGotAnyLetters: [[spoiler: After Alfonso leaves for a crusade, his and Ariadne's mutual letters are intercepted by Sir Elco.]]

** In the first timeline he treats Ariadne as the whore for her sexual availability, while upholding his view of Isabella as an untouched virgin, and [[InsaneTrollLogic reacts violently]] when Ariadne points out that Isabella has been married to his brother for years and already miscarried his child. In her speech to Ariadne Isabella speculates he will eventually grow bored of her at some point in the future and come back to Ariadne, which is why she has her killed.

* TheMistress: Lady Rubinia, Cesare's mother and king's favorite mistress. However, while he prefers her over his wife, he still favors his legitimate son over Cesare.

* PlayingCyrano: Subverted. [[spoiler: Following Arabella's death,]] Alfonso leaves Harenae to see Ariadne [[spoiler:since he assumes she was the de Mare sister who died]], whilst pretending to be sick in his quarters and leaving one of his aides to write letters to Lariessa (who insisted on exchanging daily mail, despite them living in the same place). Said aide overdoes it a bit and after coming back Alfonso discovers, to his horror, that Lariessa is even more enamored with him.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Isabella delivers such a brutal one to Ariadne just before her death, it still weighs on Ariadne's mind in the second timeline.

* PeggySue: After being killed Ariadne goes back in time in order to get revenge. It turns out, her actions are limited by the Golden Rule and she cannot exceed her vengeance over what was done to her.

* PeggySue: After being killed Ariadne goes back in time in order to get revenge. It turns out, her actions are limited by the Golden Rule and she cannot just kill whoever she wants.

** In the first timeline he treats Ariadne as the whore for her sexual availability, while upholding his view of Isabella as an untouched virgin, and [[InsaneTrollLogic reacts violently]] when Ariadne points out that Isabella had been married to his brother for years and already miscarried his child. In her speech to Ariadne Isabella speculates he will eventually grow bored of her at some point in the future and come back to Ariadne, which is why she has her killed.

* Myth/ClassicalMythology: In addition to real life historical figures, some characters are also inspired by characters from Greek myths, most notably Ariadne, who shares some traits with both her namesake and Medea, both being women spurned by men whom they helped.
** Cesare is partly inspired by Jason and Theseus.

* TooDumbToLive: Maletta is really, really dense on top of being malicious, and she ''never'' learns from her mistakes. Early on she runs her mouth in front of Ariadne, bragging how she might seduce the cardinal one day, which results in Ariadne repeating it to Lucrezia and Maletta getting lashes as a punishment. She thinks she will become Isabella's lady-in-waiting after the latter becomes a queen despite only noblewomen being allowed that position, later assumes [[spoiler: de Mares will show any regard to her and her child with Ippolito,]] even though Ariadne and her mother were just sent to the countryside, where Ariadne's mother eventually died, not to mention Lucrezia absolutely despises her. [[spoiler: After she's thrown out]] and brought by Sancha to Rambouillet Shelter, she still does not understand her situation and throws tantrums.

* DecapitationPresentation: Luzrezia issues [[spoiler: a bounty for killing Maletta after realizing the latter knows about Ippolito being an illegitimate child]], requiring her head as a proof. However, this results in a tragedy when another girl is killed for looking like her.

** The king is a pretty terrible parent to both his sons, but particularly Cesare.

* AltarDiplomacy: Alfonso's marriage with Lariessa de Valois in exchange for Gallican canons, gunpowder and military training. However, Alfonso points out this plan will work out only for a short term, since Gallico will eventually hold their monopoly on gunpowder production over Etruscan's head and use this leverage to demand more concessions from them in the future.

** Maletta brags to Ariadne that if she were to have a child with the cardinal, it would have the same social standing as Ariadne. Ariadne internally admits begrudgingly that she has a point. [[spoiler: She later uses Maletta's ambitions by encouraging her relationship with Ippolito, which results in Maletta getting pregnant. However, this gets her thrown out of the de Mare household and ultimately killed.]]

** Alfonso is a composite character of Alfonso d'Aragon and Alfonso d'Este, both husbands of Lucrezia Borgia.

* AbusiveParents: Lucrezia towards Arabella, her youngest daughter [[spoiler: because her birth ultimately prevented her mother from eloping with another man. It eventually ends with Arabella dying due to Lucrezia refusing to spend money on a doctor]]. Cardinal de Mare is more of a neglectful variety.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: The entire setting, including names, fashions, characters and events, is explicitly based off Renaissance era Europe. Etruscan Kingdom is Italy, Gallico is France, Moor kingdom seems to be either North Africa or Moorish Spain. There are also mentions of "Helenia" and "Ratan Empire" etc.

** Maletta brags to Ariadne that if she were to have a child with the cardinal, it would have the same social standing as Ariadne.