Karina Leopold

• Broken Bird: With the parents she has to drive her into a literal fatal disease out of neglect, it’s a given. And it was her love of painting that caused this in the first place.
• Black Sheep: Is considered as such towards the rest of the family. Both her looks and talents are perceived as mediocre, and she's shoved into the role of the "good sister/caretaker" role without much choice.
• Calling the Old Man Out:
  • In the past, Karina would try to call out both of her parents over their blatant neglect towards her while showering praises and favoritism to her siblings, but they would threaten to disown her for daring to complain to them, so she gave up on talking it out to her parents.
  • In one flashback, she called out her mother over coddling her younger brother while giving her nothing but disdain, all because she forced Karina to give away her birthday gift to Feldon. Her mother starts her usual tirade and expectations of Karina existing as nothing more than the "perfect big sister", but this made her snap and declare she wished she was an only child. This only earned Karina a Bitch Slap and "The Reason You Suck" Speech from her poor excuse of a mother.
  • The reason she gives this trope in letter form is because she learned from her past experiences that it’s pointless to tell them in person because said parents are in denial that they’ve treated her terribly. In the letter she reprimands her father over his demands that she exist as nothing more than a mere footstool for the family (especially to Abelia) while only caring about the family’s reputation. She’s happy to finally have someone like Milian by her side who truly loves her and never threatens her, unlike her parents. Her dad is appalled that she’s ungrateful, until he reads that she expected him to say just that while questioning him why he never seen her cry is because she gave up on earning her family’s genuine love. She ends her letter by asking him to never contact her again unless it’s for her funeral arrangements.
  • When her father and older brother finally come over to Millian’s residence and try to force her to come back to their family, she tells them straight to their faces that she won’t ever come back and tells them off for the emotional abuse heaped onto her before passing out. When her father is at her bedside and tries to justify why he neglected her over his insecurities on trying to be a proper parent, she’s having none of it and calls him out for all the suffering she has endured because of his fuck-ups and demands him to never come back into her life.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: The only physical trait she shares with the rest of her family. Her bright blue eyes definitely reflect on her innocent, yet broken heart.
• The Un-Favorite: Karina is overshadowed by her siblings and is considered to be the extra child by her parents. Her leaving causes the entire family to realize how badly they treated her, but by the time they all come to this conclusion, it's too late to make amends as she has not only burnt the bridge herself by refusing their demands to return, but her eventual death before any of them can even try to reach out makes it a permanent severance.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Due to her strong passion in painting to cope with dealing with her family’s neglect, she’s diagnosed with the fatal art disease, and doesn’t know when she’ll succumb. She decides to use her remaining time left alive to run away from home and become a great artist without her family's shadow hanging over her.

Duke Milian Pastellio

• Berserk Button: Anything to do with Karina’s family can easily set him off. Given how extremely neglectful they’ve treated her, it’s understandable.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: He gets… a little furious whenever he sees Ferriel being too friendly with Karina. One time it brought out the savage wolf in him just for seeing them in a happy mood.
• Nice Guy: Milian is this, despite his initial rough, aloof exterior.
• Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Karina and Milian were originally engaged by her parents. Milian didn't like the arrangement, as he believed Karina was too fragile to handle the cold and dangerous north. After Karina comes to live with him, he realizes that she's quite tenacious and slowly warms up to her, making it harder for Karina as her disease slowly kills her. They eventually marry and have a child, though Karina finally dies for good when her daughter is five years old.

Count Leopold

Karina's father, and the head of an aristocratic household. His family seems to get along well on the outside, which hides the fact that he and the rest of his family neglected Karina. Even though he strongly favors and spoils all of his children except Karina, he denies being a shitty parent and views Karina as the horrible one for daring to run away for a better life, rather than stay with the very family that birthed and "cared" for her.

• Abusive Parents: Where do we begin?!
  • He’s extremely neglectful of Karina and favors the rest of his children over her. He’s in denial that she has art disease because he firmly believes that she’s got no talent as an artist. Most of his time with Karina is shaming her by comparing her to her sickly younger sister.
  • Yet he has the audacity to question where everything went wrong and refuses to admit any fault he has in badly treating Karina. Because Karina was sheltered, clothed, and well fed is his definition of good parenting, but treats her as nothing more than a nanny than his own child.
  • He and his wife have quoted that Karina should have voiced her displeasures. In the past, they would often threaten to disown and leave Karina to fend for herself on the streets whenever she called them out on their bullshit.
• Bad Liar: When he comes over to take Karina back by force, he denies knowing about her Art Disease. Even though he was told of this in the past but denied it. Not only that, Ferriel, the very person who inform him of this, is standing in the very same room as he is. Ferriel naturally calls bull on his lies and exposes him in front of Karina and Millian. To which he tries to weasel himself out by continuing to assert he’ll take care of Karina and tries to justify why he neglected her, but she refuses to accept this and calls him out for being the worst parent before forcing him to leave.
• Can't Take Criticism: This is a major personal pet peeve for him. He can never comprehend nor admit whenever someone calls him out on being a horrible father to Karina since he never would admit to loving her in the same manner as his other children. Karina’s first death is what finally breaks through to him that this very mindset of his is what cost him his relationship with his daughter and he now can never fix it.
• Hypocrite:
  • For starters, he neglects and emotionally abuses Karina because as a daughter, she’s deemed not as important as her brothers. While in the same breath spoils his youngest daughter rotten because she’s sickly.
  • He believes Karina is selfish and immature for daring to think for her own happiness, despite never allowing her any rights to be her own person, nor love her in the same manner as his other children. And he’s been enforcing this belief onto Karina ever since she was a little girl. He’ll also throw tantrums like a bratty teenager whenever someone criticizes his poor parenting.
  • Thinks of himself as a good parent, but denies that he favors his other children over Karina while emotionally abusing her whenever she falls short of his expectations. Even refusing to hire out a serious search party when she runs away. Yup, this douche isn’t earning any "father of the year reward" anytime soon.
  • Once he finally meets Karina again, he argues with her to the point of her passing out due to calling him out on his denial of his emotional abuse. After she wakes up, he tries to justify why he treated her lower than dirt; he blames his insecurities over being a "first-time parent". He completely missed that part where he greatly cherished Enphric because he’s his first born child and son, while never so much as remotely spoiled Karina due to being a daughter and a second born child. Karina promptly curses him out for being so inconsiderate and demands him to get out of her life for good, with Milian helping her force her asshole of a dad and older brother into leaving their home.
• I Reject Your Reality:
  • No matter how many times people spell out he’s a shitty parent, including his eldest son, he refuses to listen or understand why he failed at every retrospect of being a proper parent.
  • Even when he travels all the way to Milian’s doorstep to force Karina back home, he refuses to accept her callout, until she passes out. Then he’s at her bedside trying to justify why he treated her so poorly because he was a "first-time parent", even though Karina is his second born child while Enphric was praised and doted on. Karina is having none of this, pointing that she’s just a ''first-time child'' suffering from his fuck-ups and tells him to leave and never come back. Milian once more tells him off for denying Karina’s art disease and forces him out of his mansion.
  • He finally accepts the reality of his terrible parenting...right after he is informed of his daughter's death, which also forces him to accept the cruel reality that BECAUSE of this parenting, he had irrevocably ruined his relationship with his daughter, which can now never be repaired.
• Never My Fault:
  • He refuses to see any fault he had in neglecting Karina into running away and expects HER to grovel for his forgiveness. Heck, he’s mostly driven into tracking down Karina just so he’ll drag her back home so that he can force her to beg on her knees to be back into the family and admit HER wrongdoings.
  • Denies that Karina is fatally ill, but a servant reveals that he received reports that she sounded sick outside her room. He demands to know why he wasn’t informed of this until now, but the servant pointed out that he was, but at the time dismisses the report under the excuses of his work while voicing his belief that Karina can take care of herself since she’s an adult. Rather than admit he was wrong in ignoring Karina’s wellbeing, he bluntly tells the servant that he should have told him anyway.
  • As mentioned above, he would threaten to disown and abandon Karina to the slums whenever she called him out on his neglect, so she gave up on talking it out with him. And he has the gall to expect Karina to simply tell him of her complaints instead of keeping it up bottled inside, despite said threats to abandon her over his annoyance at hearing her complain.
    • Even in his letter to Karina, he reprimands her for running away, but mostly because of his fears of the risk of damaging their family’s reputation while showing only concern for Abelia’s sickly condition getting worse because of Karina’s long absence, while threatening to disown her AGAIN even though she’s already out of his life.
    • It takes the announcement of Karina’s first death for him to finally realize HE was the one who has irrevocably ruined their relationship by forcing these responsibilities on her and her alone and making her sacrifice her happiness for her siblings, and now he can never repair it, leaving him guilt-ridden for what he did to her.
• Parental Favoritism:
  • Denies that he plays favorites, while putting Karina’s happiness dead last, or none existing at all, while showering praises with his other children, especially to Abelia due to her sickly condition. And he doesn’t realize that Karina is succumbing to art disease, but by the time it’s brought to light, he refuses to acknowledge it.
  • He suddenly remembers that in one chapter, he gave Abelia the room that was closest to the stairs to allow her easier access to her doctors, his eldest son was given the one next to hers because he’s his heir, his youngest son next after that just because, and Karina’s the furthest away because he felt like it. While shooting down Karina’s protest due to her fears of her room being so isolated and far away from everyone.
• Parental Neglect: See above for the full details. In short, he views Karina more like a nanny than his own child. But he’s in denial that he’s a horrible parent solely because he’s sheltered her and bought her whatever she needed, but never realizes it was love that was the most important of all.
• They Died Because of You: After Karina’s death, he’s already acknowledge by this point that he and his family are entirely at fault for driving her to an early grave and reminds everyone over all the harm they’ve given to Karina caused her terminal illness.
• Ungrateful Bastard: He enforces on Karina to be the perfect sister by praising her older brother and doing whatever her younger siblings ask her to do while never treating her with the same praises and adoration he gives to her siblings. He’ll rip into her whenever she falls out of line but denies he’s a bad parent just because he’s bought all important living conditions except love. And he has the audacity to believe Karina is the ungrateful one of the two for daring to run away to someone who genuinely grew to love her.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Not only does he deny emotional abusing Karina while blatantly favoring all his other children, but he firmly believes she ought to be grateful to him. Why? Just because he clothed her, fed her, and put a roof on her head. Which is what he, as a parent, is supposed to do!

Countess Leopold

Karina's mother, a typical noblewoman in charge of managing the household affairs. Her family seems to get along well on the outside, which hides the fact that she and the rest of her family heavily neglected Karina. But she firmly denies such emotional abuse took place, simply because she’s been forcing Karina into being less than her own daughter, but more like another parent for her younger siblings.

• Abusive Parents: She’s just as bad as her husband, if not worse. And THAT’S saying something.
  • She showers all her children with affection, except Karina. From the time she was a little girl, she constantly orders Karina to be more "grown up" and give into her siblings every whims, essentially parentifying Karina to watch for her younger siblings.
  • She drive Karina to tears just because she didn’t want to give away her birthday gift to her younger brother, the same birthday gift her mother gave Karina in the first place, but she cruelly tells her to just give it away.
    • A couple nights later, Karina asked her mother if they could sleep together, but is told no because she believes Karina is too old for it while allowing Feldon to come to bed with her instead. Once again she berates Karina "immature behavior" and demands she act like a proper big sister. This was the final straw for Karina, who promptly declares that she wished she was an only child, but who could blame her?! Yet her mother goes as low as to slap her hard across the face and berates Karina over her outburst.
  • Like her husband, she shames Karina by comparing herself to Abelia due to her sickly condition, but by recent times Karina had discovered she has been diagnosed with art disease.
  • Also like her husband, she also has the audacity to question where everything went wrong as they both point out that Karina should have voiced her displeasure. Flashbacks show of both her and her husband responding to Karina calling them out on their abuse, neglect, and favoritism by threatening to disown and abandon her to the streets.
  • The old bitch goes as far as to declare that Karina is "lying" over her art disease because she believes Karina is doing this to get attention. This makes Enphric angrily call out his mother.
• Evil Redhead: She comes off as a doting mother and dutiful wife, but pushes her eldest daughter to the corner while coddling her other children. Even going as low as to threaten her from the time she was a little girl to abandon her whenever she dared to call her and her dad out on their neglect.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After Karina's first death, she was said to start secluding herself in her own room. The same way she used to seclude Karina in the past.
• Never My Fault: Refuses to admit how cruel she treated Karina, while pondering where anything went wrong with how their relationship went south. As mentioned above, she believes if Karina had any problems then she should had told her, while missing the part that she would outright threaten Karina with abandonment whenever she dared to complain of her status as The Un-Favorite. At least until the news of Karina's first death reached the family's ears, to which she finally understands she has lost her daughter both in the physical sense and the emotional one with her actions and she is heartbroken by this realization.

Lord Enphric Leopold

Karina's eldest brother, and the heir to the Leopold county. He's an accomplished scholar and swordsman, currently working at the capital. He's the least closest sibling to Karina.

• At Least I Admit It: When visiting Karina’s art gallery, he calls out his father over his extreme neglect while pointing out that both of them, along with his mother and younger siblings are at fault for pushing Karina away. His father denies any wrongdoing because he sheltered, clothed, and bought Karina "whatever she wanted", but Enphric calls him out on this because he didn’t give her the same love he gave his other children, while admitting he’s treated her just as badly.
• Character Development: At the start of the story, he’s insensitive to Karina’s plight, but sees himself as a caring big brother, despite purposefully clashing his graduation celebration at the same day as her birthday while refusing to reschedule it for another day. Once Karina runs away, this brings out the Big Brother Instinct in him and finally makes him realize how badly she must have had it. He even chews out his father and mother over their denial of having always neglected and even emotionally abused Karina.
• Karmic Injury: As soon as Milian forces him and his father to leave the former’s mansion, he dishes out a vicious sword fight with Enphric. When Count Leopold begs Milian to stop, he’s harshly rejected and justifies the beatings because the pain Karina went through, from both her art disease and emotional abuse, is nothing compared to what Enphric is going through. Enphric doesn’t protest this and accepts his punishment.
• Never My Fault: He’s worried over Karina’s disappearance and wonders what could have drove her into it. It didn’t even cross into his mind that he largely ignored their parent’s neglect towards her while purposely scheduling a picnic to celebrate his graduation on the same day as Karina’s birthday would be the last straw for his sister to finally run away for good. He eventually grows out of it.

Feldon Leopold

Karina's younger brother, and Abelia's twin. He has great social skills, easily able to make friends and connections. He does tend to get into trouble, which Karina was forced to clean up after him.

• Annoying Younger Sibling: Shares this status with his twin sister. While he doesn't have a grudge against Karina like Abelia does, Feldon does take advantage of his older sister's docility and frames or shoves responsibility of his pranks onto her. At one point he went crying to his mother in order to force Karina to give him her own birthday gift, then threw it away when it grown tattered.
• Bratty Half-Pint: He loves pulling pranks while allowing Karina to take the blame for it. When he was only three years old, he fought with Karina over her birthday gift. When told no, he manipulated their mother to take his side and force Karina to give him her birthday gift, while tearing into her for not being "grown up" and a terrible big sister.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He is just as regretful of how he treated Karina as the rest of the family were. In the webcomic, when he and his twin sister saw Karina happily walking with her daughter by chance, he's the one who stopped Abelia from trying to see Karina again as he recognized that none of them had any right to reconnect with her again.
• Out of Focus: In contrast to the other Leopold family members, he has the least focus on how he reacts to the happenings of the story.

Abelia Leopold

Karina's younger sister, and Feldon's twin. She's a talented embroider, but is quite sickly and needs constant attention. Karina was closest to Abelia, being that she was the one mainly taking care of her when her parents couldn't, though it meant she had to give up on having a social life outside of required events.

• Annoying Younger Sibling: Shares this status with her twin brother. Abelia admits to being jealous that Karina is healthy and able to go outside and do things she can't, so she has makes her sister stay home with her and give up things like her toys and snacks to her. Karina hates that her parents favor them over her while Abelia doesn’t have a shred of concern over her major emotional scars.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When she overhears Karina’s letter to their father, she’s horrified over the the revelation of Karina’s intentions to never return while revealing that she’s dying from the art disease. She runs to her room crying once she realizes that Karina did briefly come back to put her to bed, especially lamenting that her big sister meant every word in her letter and feeling awful how she'd been treating Karina up to that point.
• Spoiled Brat:
  • She revels at her family showering her with affection while pushing Karina to stay by her side like she was more like a nanny than an elder sister.
  • She admits she would sometimes act even sicker on purpose to make Karina stay with her because she felt jealous that her older sister had a healthier body and hated that the latter could go to parties and make friends while she couldn’t. Except that she also conveniently forgets that despite having these supposed freedoms on paper, Karina still couldn’t go to those parties and has no friends BECAUSE she was expected to take care of Abelia.
  • She would have Karina take the heat from their parents' tirades of minor problems she started, then run to her to cry out how sorry she was for the predicament. Then ask for more favors.

Marquis Ferriel Carlos

• The Gadfly: Ferriel likes to provoke people, particularly Milian, and is brutally honest towards people who he isn't fond of.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Milian and Ferriel are this. They constantly butt heads and insult one another, but they do care about each other deep, deep down.

Dr. Winston

A gruff doctor who Karina sees when she isn't feeling well, since she doesn't want to rely on the ignorant family doctor. He diagnosed her with art disease and helped her get to the north, but ended up following after her after being concerned over her wellbeing. He also has art disease, which has slowly destroyed his eyesight, and has given up on his gift embroidery as a countermeasure.

• Cassandra Truth: He warned his pupil Nocturn that he should never play favorites with his patients or project his feelings and guilt onto them. Nocturn failed to heed his warning as he treats Abelia as a Replacement Goldfish for his deceased sister to the point of neglecting his responsibilities and duties of a doctor. This very fact results in Nocturn trying to steal the Harons Millian needs to save Karina's life in hopes to use it for Abelia, which gets him killed by Millian.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he initially acted as a Dr. Jerk towards Karina, he softens up once he figures out how bad her home life is, and chases after her up to the north. He's also quite dismayed learning that his pupil had failed Karina as a doctor due to his own personal issues that should not have gotten in the way of his duties. Justified, as he too has art disease; it's implied her determination to live her final days to the fullest shook him out of his cynicism
• Real Men Wear Pink: The gruff, grumpy Dr. Winston is an expert embroiderer, with the miraculous ability to find anyone or anything using his embroidery as a map. However, he gained art disease and had to stop in order to keep his eyesight intact. He will still do it for special occasions, however, like when he went to find Karina in the north.

Nocturn

Abelia's personal doctor, and the rest of the Leopold family's doctor if needed. Karina once had feelings for him, but they died when she realized that he only had eyes for Abelia, who reminds him of his dead little sister. He's Dr. Winston's apprentice, and takes charge of his clinic while he goes up north to check up on Karina.

• Dr. Jerk:
  • He’s warned by his mentor not to play favorites with the patients, but he does just that with Abelia because he’s reminded of his own dead sister, even borderline into a romantic attraction. He doesn’t notice that Karina had a crush on him for a time, until he tears into her of what a terrible person she was for ALMOST getting Abelia injured, never mind Karina getting injured was because she was protecting Abelia from having caused the bookshelf to almost fall on her. Nor does he notice her fatal art disease because he’s only focused on caring for Abelia. Karina gives up on him entirely at that point.
  • Even after he learns about Karina’s art disease and feels guilty over not noticing it, he quickly gets over it and tries to steal away the Heron stone, which is the only thing that could save her life, just so that he can use it on Abelia instead, on the grounds that she’s a child and needs it for her wellbeing (even though her condition isn’t terminal). Millian puts an end to it by arranging his death instead.
• Fatal Flaw: His favoritism toward Abelia and inability to move on from the memory of his deceased sister lead him to going as far as to try stealing the Haron stone for Abelia from Millian, going against the principles and responsibilities of a doctor since Karina needs the stone to save her life. Millian enraged by this kills him and passes off his death as being from a brutal bandit attack.
• Ignored Epiphany: Dr. Winston had warned him to never play favorites with patients due to seeing him projecting his feelings toward his deceased sister on Abelia. While he does feel guilt upon learning that he never noticed Karina’s art, he ultimately chooses to prioritize Abelia’s wellbeing, which leads to him trying to steal the Haron stone from Millian, which he needs to save Karina. All so that he’ll give it to Abelia instead, even though Karina needs the stone far more than the former. This act results in Millian furiously killing him in cold blood.
• The Intern: He's Dr. Winston's apprentice.
• Kick the Dog: One time he witnessed Karina getting badly injured by a falling bookcase, no thanks to Abelia’s antics over demanding her sister’s attention. Rather than care for her injuries or scold Abelia for being reckless, he rips into Karina for almost getting her sickly little sister injured. Even proclaiming that he’s glad that she got hurt instead of Abelia, all the while imagining that he’s seeing Abelia as his own deceased sister.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After Dr. Winston leaves for the north, Nocturn eventually realizes that the patient with art disease is Karina, and laments how he didn't help her when it was obvious she was ill. It’s ultimately subverted once he learns about the Haron stone and tries to steal it for Abelia before Millian could use it on Karina.
• Replacement Goldfish: Nocturn cares a lot about Abelia because she reminds him of his little sister, who died young. He’s not even hiding his outright attraction to her. His mentor warned him multiple times to not play favorites with patients since it's clearly unhealthy for him and goes against the principles a proper doctor should follow.
• Undignified Death: He died under Millian's hand for choosing to prioritize his feelings for Abelia over being a proper doctor by trying to steal the Haron stone for Abelia when Millian needs the stone to save Karina, which Millian covers up as him getting attacked by bandits.