Webcomic / I'm the Queen in This Life

Alfonso, Ariadne and Cesare

After more than half a life of scheming, which included inciting 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 prince's widow, Isabella, explains to her 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.

Ariadne decides to use her new life to get revenge on everyone who wronged her, but discovers her sudden regression has a price, and the past cannot be so easily changed.

I'm the Queen in This Life is a novel that has been adapted to a webcomic. Both are still ongoing. You can read the original novel on Naver, while the English translation of the comic is available on Webtoon.

Under construction

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Provides examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: After what happened in the first timeline, Ariadne wants nothing to do with Cesare. To her horror, he becomes more insistent the more she resists.
  • Lariessa de Valois for Alfonso.
• Abusive Parents: Lucrezia towards Arabella, her youngest daughter. It eventually ends with Arabella dying from her injuries after Isabella shoves her down the stairs. The reason why she doesn't survive is because of Lucrezia refusing to spend money on a doctor. Cardinal de Mare is more of a neglectful variety.
  • The king is a pretty terrible parent to both his sons, particularly Cesare.
  • Rubina wins no prizes either having been known to slap and yell at Cesare.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Downplayed, but Ariadne is ultimately both impressed and badly shaken by Lucrezia's death and her staunch refusal to out her son as a bastard.
• Albinos Are Freaks: Averted. Raphael Balthasar is portrayed as an unambiguously good person, but people still talk behind his back.
• All Take and No Give: Cesare towards Ariadne in the first timeline. She was working to make him the king for 15 years, while he basically used her for his political goals and sex, and got rid of her as soon as he got what he wanted. He goes through some character development in the second timeline, rescuing Ariadne for little to no reward, even breaking his arm and risking his reputation, but he's still a fundamentally selfish and deeply flawed person, and Ariadne still rejects him.
• Altar Diplomacy: Alfonso's marriage with Lariessa de Valois in exchange for Gallican cannons, 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.
• Amputative Sentencing: Downplayed, 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.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Arabella is initially this to both her sisters, but she later warms up to Ariadne.
• Antiquated Linguistics: English translation of the webcomic employs it to a mild extent.
• Arranged Marriage: All around the place. Most notably, Isabella and Alfonso's in the first timeline, then Alfonso and Lariessa's in the second one. Ariadne and Cesare were similarly arranged to be married by their parents in both timelines, but Cesare kept her as his fiancée indefinitely and eventually put her in prison after she started nagging him about it once he became the king in the first timeline, while Ariadne herself breaks off their engagement in the second timeline.
• The Atoner: Ariadne decides to help Alfonso become the king and stop Cesare as an atonement for what she did in the first timeline.
• Bad Bedroom, Bad Life: Downplayed. After arriving at de Mare household, Ariadne is initially given a very modest bedroom in the attic, but she doesn't seem to mind, especially since it's still better than what she had at the farm. After she wins the queen's favor and is given very expensive presents along with a safe, her panicked father orders her to be moved to Ippolito's (who's currently away at the university) luxurious rooms, to not make it seem like he's giving his other daughter worse treatment than his legitimate children. This sticks even after Ippolito comes back home.
• Balancing Death's Books: Implied with Alfonso's first child. Both Isabella in the first timeline and Ariadne in the second one miscarried their first children with him.
• Bastard Bastard: Cesare and Ariadne in both timelines. Cesare is an illegitimate son of the king and his mistress (although he's publicly passed off as his nephew), while Ariadne is a result of Cardinal de Mare's affair with his maid. Both are very morally dubious people, Cesare moreso, while Ariadne recovers somewhat in the second timeline.
  • Ippolito turns out to be a son of Lucrezia with a different man. He does everything to keep it under wraps, from killing his pregnant mistress to throwing his own mother under the bus. He later becomes a major drug dealer and attempts to sexually assault Bianca.
• Bastard Boyfriend: Cesare to Ariadne in the first timeline. He basically strung her along as his fiancée for 15 years as she slavishly devoted herself to helping him become the king, while he gaslighted, demeaned and and humiliated her at every opportunity to keep her self-esteem low. After finally achieving his goal he throws her away instantly and instead marries Isabella, with whom he had been carrying an affair behind Ariadne's back. Bonus point for being an actual bastard.
• Batman Gambit: Ariadne deliberately makes Maletta Ippolito's personal maid, knowing their affair will eventually ruin them both.
  • 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 with ledgers again, and to expose her to the Cardinal.
• Berserk Button: Lucrezia really hates being reminded of the fact she's only the Cardinal's mistress despite being a noblewoman. Queen Margaret easily puts her in her place by calling her "Miss de Rossi" instead of "Lady de Mare".
  • Insulting Cesare was this for Ariadne in the first timeline.
• Best Served Cold: Ariadne slowly starts collecting evidence of Isabella's wrongdoings, but is careful about exposing it yet, since:

  Ariadne (to Sancha): Evidence is like a barrel of gunpowder. It has the most impact when it's ignited all at once while the enemy's at their weakest. For now, we'll keep stacking one barrel after another until the day we light the fuse and let it all blow up in Isabella's face.

• Big Sister Bully: Isabella towards Arabella. It eventually ends with her pushing Arabella down the stairs to her death.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Isabella. This is more prominent in the first timeline, where Ariadne didn't even suspect her of any underhanded dealings until Isabella went mask-off. In the second timeline Isabella's sheep's clothing slides off pretty quickly.
  • Ariadne herself is arguably one as well, but she's not as saccharine about it as her sister is and does in fact have a moral center unlike Isabella.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: Hardly anyone, save for a handful of characters, could be called good in this story. Ariadne is a scheming, vindictive Manipulative Bitch 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 former Bastard Boyfriend and his mother, Psychopathic Womanchild foreign princess and wife-beating, syphilitic failure of a king.
• Bodyguard Crush: Sir Elko develops a crush on Ariadne, with terrible consequences for everyone involved.
• Breaking Speech: 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 causing her to develop an eating disorder.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Filippo IV, the king of Gallico, was sleeping with his sister Princess Auguste and even had a child, Jean, with her.
• Brown Note: The fortune-teller even mentioning the nature of her regression to Ariadne causes Giada, her accompanying maid, to literally turn to dust, because "the Heavens exact a heavy price for unveiling their secrets to mortals".
• Burn the Witch!: Any association with magic is bound to eventually attract the unkind attentions of the Inquisition. Fortune-tellers operate on the fringes of society and end up at the stake as the scapegoats every time some large-scales calamities happen in their area. The Cardinal becomes absolutely livid when Lucrezia attempts to perform some magic at home, since it would get their entire family executed, and banishes her to the countryside.
• Cain and Abel: Cesare and Alfonso, and Isabella and Ariadne. Both Alfonso and Ariadne end up dead at the orders of their siblings in the first timeline.
  • Sancha and Maletta. Maletta pushed her sister away and left her to die at Rambouillet Shelter, despite promising she would come back for her. After she's thrown out of de Mare household for getting pregnant with Ippolito, Sancha brings her back to the shelter, but Maletta is too conceited to realize she should be laying low for a while and runs away, which ultimately results in her death. Sancha doesn't seem to mourn her much.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: In the second timeline Queen Margaret avoids being poisoned by Rubina. She's still killed by someone else later the same day.
• Child Prodigy: Arabella is a musical prodigy. She's eventually accepted into a music college at ten as the youngest student ever. Unfortunely, it goes nowhere as Arabella is tragically killed by Isabella before Ariadne can even deliver the good news to her.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Almost everyone, save perhaps for Alfonso.
• Classical Mythology: 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 the men they helped.
  • Mirroring her, Cesare is partly inspired by Jason and Theseus.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Alfonso wears mostly blue, white and gold with some black, while Cesare is associated with red and black.
• Costume Porn: Plenty of gorgeous Renaissaince gowns everywhere.
• Crocodile Tears: Isabella's favorite weapon of choice, alongside malicious gossip.
  • Ariadne is not averse to using those either, especially against Isabella.
• Dances and Balls: Plenty, most notably Ariadne's debutante reception, the masquerade and the ball at which Lariessa confesses to Alfonso.
• Decapitation Presentation: Lucrezia issues a bounty for killing Maletta after realizing the latter knows about Ippolito being an illegitimate child, requiring her head as a proof. This results in a tragedy when another girl is killed for looking like her.
• Defiled Forever: Invoked. The reason for the Cardinal's rage at both Zanobi and Isabella after Ariadne's hunting accident is that she would be considered "ruined" if she spent the night at the forest.
• Denied Food as Punishment: In addition to locking her in her rooms with no luxuries for trying to tarnish her sister's reputation, Isabella is also only given bread and water for sustenance.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Discussed and defied. Ariadne is explicitly told she cannot do to her enemies anything that would exceed what they have done to her, otherwise she'll have to pay for it in some way.
• Does Not Like Spam: Alfonso tells Ariadne he's not really fond of sweets, especially sticky, gelatinous puddings like sanguinaccio dolce. This comes as a shock to Ariadne, since she poisoned him in the first timeline with this exact dessert, and she realizes he ate it despite probably knowing it was fatal because he wanted to spare her from Cesare's ire.
• Double In-Law Marriage: In the first timeline Alfonso and Cesare, half-brothers, were married/engaged to Isabella and Ariadne, half-sisters.
• The Dutiful Son: Alfonso to his mother and to his kingdom. His feelings for Ariadne get in the way somewhat.
  • Lucrezia is a villainous example, sending the money she embezzled from the Cardinal to support her family.
• Establishing Character Moment: Lariessa de Valois quickly reveals herself to be unhinged when Alfonso catches her lying about something trivial during their first conversation. He himself tries to downplay it and steer the topic in another direction, but she instantly reacts by becoming hysterical and running away from their meeting.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Lucrezia genuinely loves her children. Well, the ones not named Arabella. Even after she realizes both Ippolito and Isabella had forsaken 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.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Played straight and subverted. Lucrezia is an all-around awful person, but even she protests when Ippolito suggests he would have his pregnant mistress killed. However, she quickly changes her mind when he reveals Maletta knows about one of Lucrezia's children being illegitimate.
  • When stumbling onto the scene of what she intially assumes to be rape, Isabella actually considers screaming or bringing some help, until she realizes it's just some couple having consensual sex.
• Evil Redhead: Cesare and his mother, Zanobi and Maletta. Averted with Sancha.
• Family Eye Resemblance: Ariadne and Arabella have green eyes like their father. Ippolito and Isabella have the purple eyes of their mother, but it turns out Ippolito is not really the Cardinal's son, while Isabella's parentage remains ambiguously unaddressed.
• Family Relationship Switcheroo: Cesare is officially the king's nephew, but virtually everyone knows he's actually his son. Cesare's status becomes later a plot point due to certain laws in the kingdom.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The entire setting, including names, fashions, characters and events, is explicitly based off Renaissance era Europe with a dash of Medieval Ages. 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.
• Flower Motif: 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.
  • While Cesare made this comparison as a backhanded compliment, he unknowingly did have some point: lily of the valley is highly poisonous.
• Foreshadowing: After Ariadne arrives to de Mare household, Arabella tries to push her down the stairs, but accidentally pushes Isabella instead. Over fifty chapters later, Arabella dies after Isabella pushes her down the same stairs.
  • 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 that she has a point. 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.
  • Lucrezia resentment of her status of mere cardinal's mistress at first seems to be only caused by the fact she's not properly wed to him, since he's a member of the clergy. However, it turns out to be more than that: she loved a nobleman who was Ippolito's actual father, and planned to run away with him, but got pregnant with Arabella and had to stay with the Cardinal, whom she viewed as undeserving of her. It also explains her hatred of Arabella.
• Functional Addict: Ippolito got addicted to opium during his studies in Padua. Aside from permanent shadows under his eyes, it doesn't seem to affect him much and he later becomes a drug dealer in San Carlo.
• The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Isabella and Ariadne, with Isabella being the beautiful and Ariadne being the smart one. It quickly gets very nasty.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Maletta is pretty delusional from the very start, but after she's placed in Rambouillet Shelter by Ariadne and left alone for a while, her grip on sanity starts slipping even more (which might be exacerbated by her pregnancy), causing her to run away despite her precarious situation and eventually get killed.
• Good with Numbers: In her first life Ariadne used to manage the royal palace's budget, which is why she's very adept at bookkeeping. When her father gives her a very modest sum to organize her own debutante ball, she surprises him by not only doing it, but also still leaving some spare money. This leads to her eventually running de Mare's household ledgers and wrestling even more power away from Lucrezia.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Isabella wears mostly purple to compliment her eyes. Even Ariadne admits grudgingly that, for all her flaws, her fashion sense is impeccable.
• Has a Type: Cesare starts going exclusively after tall, black haired women after Ariadne breaks off their engagement.
• Hate Sink: The entire de Rossi family, including Lucrezia's children, save for Arabella.
• Hope Spot: Ariadne tries to get Arabella out of harm's way by sending her off to a music college in Padua where she would avoid the incoming plague and hopefully eventually profit from her musical talents. Arabella dies on the same day Ariadne receives her admission to the college.
• Hunk: Alfonso grows into one during the timeskip.
• Hunting "Accident": 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. When the matter is brought before the king, Zanobi is "only" sentenced to lashing and barred from ever becoming a knight, as Ariadne bitterly notes the charge of a murder attempt is not recognized.
• I Am Not Your Father: Lucrezia reveals to Ippolito he's not really her son with the Cardinal, but with another man.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Ariadne is ran through with a sword in the first timeline.
  • Same goes for Maletta after Lucrezia orders her murder.
• Incest-ant Admirer: Zanobi towards his cousin Isabella, who uses this attraction to manipulate him.
• I Never Got Any Letters: After Alfonso leaves for a crusade, his and Ariadne's mutual letters are intercepted by Sir Elko.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: After Zanobi is brought before the king and accused of attacking Ariadne, he denies he shot a bolt into her horse's hindquarters. Ariadne points out he was only accused of shooting at her and nowhere it was stated where he shot her or if it even hit the target.
• The Inquisition: Makes an appearance in chapter 12 to arrest Alejandro, "the Apostle of Asserto", for his heretical teachings.
  • Later the Cardinal banishes Lucrezia from his house for attempting to perform a magic ritual in fear she would eventually attract the attention of the Inquisition and cause their entire family to be burned at stake.
• In Spite of a Nail: Just like in the first timeline, Arabella still dies young, Queen Margaret is still poisoned and war between Etruscan and Gallico still erupts despite Ariadne trying to prevent all of the above.
• Ironic Echo: In the first timeline Isabella repeats to Ariadne Cesare's derogatory comments about her body, complaining about her broad shoulders and large breasts. In the second timeline, after sleeping with Isabella, Cesare complains to Ariadne about her skinny body and flat chest.
• Ladykiller in Love: Cesare towards Ariadne in the second timeline. He's famous for his numerous conquests, and initially pursues Ariadne just because his half-brother is interested in her as well, but he eventually falls for her, while she keeps refusing him.
• Light Is Good: Alfonso is blond and blue-eyed, usually wears light-colored clothes and is so far the least morally grey character in this story.
• Light Is Not Good: Blonde Isabella 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.
  • Ariadne is introduced wearing a white gown when she poisons Alfonso in the first timeline.
• Love at First Sight: Discussed and defied. Lariessa claims she had fallen in love with Alfonso the moment she saw him, but he points out she knows nothing about him, not to mention she's clearly unhinged with her affections.
• Love Martyr: Ariadne for Cesare in the first timeline. She suffered all kinds of indignities and worked tirelessly for him to become the king while still waiting for him to make her his wife. She ends up betrayed and imprisoned (and killed, but it was more Isabella's idea) once he's done with her. Isabella lampshades this, telling her doing everything for one man and hoping for his gratitude was a terrible idea that was bound to end in tears. Ariadne takes this lesson to heart in the second timeline and resolves to never fall in love again.
• Loving a Shadow: Raphael falls in love with Ariadne because of seeing the way she skillfully navigates situations and believes her to be perfect, but as Ariadne knows she is far from perfect and the only reason she seems so intelligent is because of her knowledge of the previous timeline. Raphael’s view of her is burdensome and she feels if she was with him she would struggle to live up to his perfect image of her so she rejects his confession.
• Madonna-Whore Complex: Cesare suffers from this mindset.
  • 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 reacts violently when Ariadne points out that Isabella has been married to his brother for years and had 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.
  • In the second timeline he keeps pining for Ariadne, who constantly rejects his advances, and despises Isabella, who already slept with him and other men.
• Malicious Slander: Isabella constantly tries undermine other women, particularly her half-sister, by spreading gossip about them. It eventually causes other society ladies to turn away from her, as they become disgusted by her blatant scheming.
• Mark of the Supernatural: After waking up in the past Ariadne discovers she has a mark under her eye where there wasn't one before, as well as a scar around her finger that was cut off in the first timeline. Later she starts getting red marks on her hand as people start dying because of her.
• The Marvelous Deer: In both timelines Cesare was obsessed with hunting the mythical 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, but, surprisingly, Cesare gives up on pursuing it to make sure Ariadne comes back safely to the camp.
• The Mistress: Countess Rubina, Cesare's mother and king's favorite mistress. However, while he prefers her over his wife, he still favors his legitimate son over Cesare.
  • Technically Lucrezia is one as well, but since she's living with the Cardinal, she and their children are his family in all but name.
• Morality Pet: Sancha, Alfonso and Arabella are this for Ariadne. Arabella's death is another motivator for her to destroy her family.
• Mother Makes You King: Rubina wants Cesare to reach for the crown. She got her wish in the first timeline, but is still working on it in the second one.
  • The reason Cesare initially contacts Ariadne in the second timeline is because his mother wanted him to buy the Heart of the Deep Blues Sea, a legendary jewel rumored to make its holder the next king, which Ariadne received from the royal couple.
• My Beloved Smother: Zig-zagged with Cesare and his ambitious mother, who's pushing him to become the king. He's fairly independent, not really caring that much about her nagging and avoiding her most of the time, and it's shown that as a kid he preferred Queen Margaret over his mother, since she was nicer and not as overbearing towards him.
  • Lucrezia and Ippolito. He returns to de Mare manor immediately after finding out she's been banished from it and tries to reinstate her. In turn, she's furious to discover he's been sleeping with Maletta and instantly starts mistreating the girl. She's also supporting him with extra money and sheltering him from his father's wrath. However, Ippolito quickly throws her under the bus following the Maletta fiasco.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Ariadne starts gradually suffering from guilt for killing Alfonso in the first timeline.
• The Needs of the Many: Alfonso's mother plainly lays out to him why he needs to choose Lariessa over Ariadne: his marriage to Lariessa will result in personal union with the more powerful kingdom of Gallico. Etruscan is a smaller, poorer and less militarily developed country, and they need Gallico's cannons and gunpowder (which cannot be produced in Etruscan) to ensure its stability. Furthermore, royals are required to protect their citizens as a part of the social contract.
• Nice to the Waiter: Alfonso doesn't like sweets, but he still eats desserts served to him at banquets because he doesn't want to cause trouble for the kitchen staff. He's also perfectly polite to his servants and guards.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Most main characters seem to be a mishmash of various political figures of Rennaisance Italy.
  • Ariadne and Isabella are decomposite characters of Lucrezia Borgia, with Ariadne having her political acumen and Isabella having her looks. Ariadne is said to be also partially inspired by Isabella of France.
  • Alfonso is a composite character of Alfonso d'Aragon and Alfonso d'Este, particularly the former, both husbands of Lucrezia Borgia.
  • Cesare is inspired by Cesare Borgia, but sans his military prowess.
  • Alejandro of Asserto is inspired by Girolamo Savonarola.
  • Cardinal de Mare shares some similarities with Rodrigo Borgia although he doesn't become the pope.
• Oblivious Younger Sibling: Arabella, initially. Only after Ariadne points it out to her, she realizes nobody cares about her in the entire de Mare household.
  • Ariadne describes herself as such towards Isabella in the first timeline.
• Open Secret: Everyone knows the king's nephew, Cesare, is actually his illegitimate son.
  • To a lesser extent, Cesare's mother, Countess Rubina, employing the services of a Moorish fortune-teller for over twenty years is a well known fact among society ladies. However, just because the king's mistress gets away with it, does not mean the cardinal's mistress does as well.
• Ordered to Die: 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 will be forced to confess about Ippolito being a bastard.
• Parental Favoritism: Lucrezia towards Isabella. She fawns over Ippolito too, but he's absent from family home for most of the early plot, so we mostly see the difference between Lucrezia's treatment of Isabella and Arabella.
• Peggy Sue: After being killed Ariadne goes back in time in order to get revenge.
• Playing Cyrano: Subverted. Following Arabella's death, Alfonso leaves Harenae to see Ariadne 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) in his stead. Said aide overdoes it a bit and after coming back Alfonso discovers, to his horror, that Lariessa is even more enamored with him.
• Poor Communication Kills: After hearing one of younger de Mare daughters died, Alfonso instantly assumes it was Ariadne, and leaves Harenae to see her. This has long lasting consequences regarding his relationship with Lariessa.
• The Promise: After Arabella's death Alfonso promises Ariadne to create a better world for her.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: 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. Eventually she descends into delusions of Alfonso loving her back.
• Really Gets Around: Cesare is constantly teased about his conquests by his friends. However, this eventually causes his reputation to plummet when he becomes indiscreet with his affairs.
  • Clemente Bartolini, who's married to an elderly count, is having multiple affairs with her husband's consent, but she becomes increasingly miserable with this arrangement, since it makes her believe he doesn't really love her.
• Red Right Hand: Literally. Due to her violating the Golden Rule, Ariadne's hand becomes covered by red spots after she causes the plague in Gallico. She has to wear gloves to cover them.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: After hearing his uncle mention how not all of Lucrezia's children were born of the same man, Ippolito assumes he was talking about Arabella, due to their mother's blatant disregard for her. As it turns out, it's the other way around: Lucrezia hated Arabella exactly because she was Cardinal's daughter, while she wanted to run away with her true love, Ippolito's biological father.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Ariadne's original plan in the second timeline. As it turns out, her actions are limited by the Golden Rule and she cannot exceed her vengeance over what was done to her.
• Saying Too Much: Maletta just doesn't know when to shut up, even after it has repeatedly backfired at her.
• Screw the Money, This Is Personal!: Subverted and played straight. Scampa initially refuses the generous sum of money the Cardinal offers him to compensate for the death of his beloved daughter, just because it won't return her to him. However, Ariadne swoops in, offering him to get revenge by demanding Lucrezia's death as an equal exchange. The Cardinal agrees to it.
• Self-Made Man: Ariadne's father was an orphan of common birth, who eventually became a cardinal. He almost becomes the next pope, but has to step back due to Ippolito's crimes tarnishing his reputation. Still, in both timelines he managed to marry his daughters to the prince.
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: While "hero" might be a bit of a stretch, Ariadne dresses much more conservatively and in more somber colors than Lucrezia and Isabella. This is also part of her deliberate ploy to come across as more sensible and pious compared to them.
• She Knows Too Much: Lucrezia orders Maletta to be killed after realizing she had overheard the discussion regarding Lucrezia's infidelity and one of her children being a bastard.
  • Giada, Lucrezia's personal maid, ends up being this due to her knowledge of her mistress going to a fortune-teller and trying to perform magic in Cardinal's house. Ironically, this is not what gets her killed: it's accompanying Ariadne to said fortune-teller for more information and overhearing the talk about "the hex of Amhara", which causes her to perish by literally turning to dust.
• Sibling Murder: Cesare kills Alfonso (via Ariadne), and Isabella orders the killing of Ariadne in the first timeline.
  • Isabella pushes Arabella down the stairs to cover her involvement in arranging Ariadne's Wardrobe Malfunction at her debutante ball.
• Social Climber: The Cardinal is a lowborn man who rose to prominence thanks to rising in ranks in the clergy. He views his entire family as assets to help his public image and rise even further, which is why he agrees to pay extraordinary sums for Ippolito's education and upkeep, parades his daughters in public to advertise them as promising brides for potential political allies, is downright paranoid about his PR and constantly covers his wife's blunders until he can't do it anymore and has to agree to force her into suicide to save his face and his children's future prospects.
• Slave to PR: The Cardinal cares the most about the public image of his family. Ariadne makes it very easy to gain his favor by posing as his dutiful, sensible, pious daughter, while helping to out both Lucrezia and Isabella as petty, vindictive, immoral shrews, which eventually causes the Cardinal to lock Isabella in her rooms and to banish and ultimately force Lucrezia into suicide.
  • Ariadne is in general wary of publicly engaging into arguments with her family, since she has to keep up her image as an obedient daughter.
• Snooping Little Kid: Arabella loves to go through her sisters' possessions. This leads her first to discovering Isabella's hair extensions, the lost ruby from Ariadne's bracelet and silver hooks from her sabotaged dress, and eventually causes her death.
• Start to Corpse: The webcomic starts with a shot of Alfonso's corpse after he's poisoned by Ariadne.
• A Taste of the Lash: Maletta is lashed after bragging to Ariadne she would seduce her father one day.
  • Later the king sentences Zanobi to flogging for shooting Ariadne's horse and almost causing her to die.
• This Means War!: Ariadne already hated and planned the downfall of her stepmother's family for treating her terribly, but she openly declares she will won't stop until she punishes those responsible for Arabella's death. She succeeds pretty quickly with destroying Lucrezia, but Isabella proves to be a more difficult enemy to pin down.
• Too Dumb to Live: 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 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 openly despises Maletta and is physically abusive to her. After she's thrown out and brought by Sancha to Rambouillet Shelter, she still does not understand her situation, even though she's well aware she has nowhere else to go, and throws tantrums at people who basically saved her life. When Ariadne interrogates her, she just lists a handful of completely irrelevant facts and gossip and only accidentally mentions the topic of Ippolito's illegitimate birth. (Amusingly enough, she figured it out before Ippolito, who thought it was Arabella.) Then she runs away from the shelter, only to get gruesomely killed almost immediately afterwards.
  • Lucrezia going to a fortune-teller is risky enough, but her attempting to perform a magic ritual in Cardinal's house in broad daylight, when the Inquisition could arrest and execute their entire family, is downright criminally stupid and gets her banished from the manor. She's eventually forced into suicide by the Cardinal to appease the angry mob after her order to kill Maletta results in another person getting murdered.
• Too Unhappy to Be Hungry: Ariadne stops eating after Arabella's death. She doesn't eat much anyway, due to her body image issues after Isabella relayed some of Cesare's derogatory comments about her in the first timeline.
• Torches and Pitchforks: The outraged mob gathers outside de Mare manor after a young girl is mistakenly killed due to Lucrezia demanding Maletta's head.
• Touch Telepathy: Ariadne discovers she can see people's memories by touching them when she grabs Maletta's face, but she has no control over it, this ability is extremely random, happens very rarely and has to be yet explored.
• Undying Loyalty: Sancha for Ariadne, after Ariadne saved her from starving, took her from the shelter and let herself be stabbed by Lucrezia after the latter attacked Sancha.
• The Un-Favourite: Arabella to both her parents. To the Cardinal because she's just another girl he has to prepare a dowry for, to her mother because her pregnancy with Arabella prevented her from running away with a man she actually loved. This ends up with Arabella dying after her sister pushed her down the stairs while Lucrezia refused to call a physician, because it would cost money. Nobody in the family except for Ariadne even attends her funeral.
• Unholy Matrimony: Ariadne and Cesare in the first timeline. Except they weren't married, something Ariadne was hoping for until the very end, before Cesare discarded her.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: Isabella and Maletta sabotage Ariadne's debutante dress, resulting in it ripping at her chest during the ball. Then Isabella tries to spin it as Ariadne trying to bring attention to herself. Ariadne, who suffers from some body image issues (stemming from Isabella's comments about her looks in the first timeline) is genuinely traumatized by it.
• Villain Has a Point: Isabella's Breaking Speech to Ariadne in the first timeline contains some actually astute observations, like the fact she shouldn't bet everything on the gratitude of one man, especially since men are fickle with their favors and in their world women have to be careful with how they value their worth. She also, most likely correctly, predicts Cesare will bore of her after a while and seek Ariadne again, which is why she orders her murder. Ariadne even admits her sister was right, and tries to avoid getting romantically involved with anyone.
• Wicked Stepmother: Lucrezia is instantly abusive towards Ariadne, though she's a pretty awful biological mother to Arabella as well.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Both Isabella and Ariadne use this tactic against each other. While Ariadne is less prone to actively do anything against Isabella, she's quick to turn Isabella's schemes against her and turning on the waterworks in front of their father to get her sister punished. It usually works.
• You Are Grounded!: The Cardinal orders Isabella to be confined to her rooms for a long time for almost ruining Ariadne's reputation during her hunting accident.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Very strongly implied. Despite Ariadne's best efforts, Arabella still dies at a young age (in fact, even younger than before) and Queen Margaret is still poisoned, which results in a war between Etruscan and Gallico. This isn't always the case, however.