Lucy Marlowe

Lucien "Lucy" Marlowe is the main character of Never Satisfied. They are 17 years old and apprenticed to Thierry Rothart. Although Ivy accompanies them on errands and in their day-to-day life, she is not their familiar.

Appearance
Lucy is a tall, slender teenager with light skin and slightly wavy chin-length black hair. They wear an eye patch with a distinctive three-diamond emblem over their right eye. They tend to favor stylish, casual clothing, which they make themselves. They wear glass earrings shaped like diamonds.

Personality
Around people they don't know well, Lucy affects a haughty, conceited demeanor. They're quick to brag about their own skills, whether their bragging is accurate or not, and insist that they're in control of events.

When dealing with those they trust, however, Lucy reveals a much more soft and nurturing personality, making cute outfits for Ivy and sticking their neck out to steal food for a handful of street kids they hardly know.

Because of their master's neglect and verbal abuse, Lucy thinks very poorly of themselves. Quick to assume the worst of what others think, they put up a superior front to hide their true feelings of inferiority and embarrassment.

Despite their low self-esteem, Lucy is highly driven and ambitious, refusing to give up on the representative competition even when Ivy urges them that they're in over their head.

Relationships
Lucy is a generally isolated person who keeps largely to themselves, despite their confident, extroverted façade. When people are rude to them they often snap back, and when people are friendly to them they assume an ulterior motive.

Ivy
Ivy is Lucy's best and only real friend in the world. They often spoil her by making clothing that complements their own outfits, though this can veer into them playing dress-up with her, and she (usually) loves to play along. In return, she adopts a gentle demeanor with them, offering them comfort and advice.

Although Ivy deeply cares about Lucy, she's often stuck between looking out for them and dealing with Thierry, and routinely plays middleman to Thierry in their defense. After getting severely injured in a fight with Su-Yeong, Ivy attempted to convince Lucy to drop out of the representative competition, refusing to help them any more than she already had.

Thierry Rothart
Formally, Thierry is Lucy's master, though their apprenticeship is very much in name only. In practice, Thierry is neglectful and cold to Lucy, only speaking to them to tell them what to do or to reprimand them. Despite seeing Thierry as a bitter old man who's never extended kindness to them, Lucy's desperate to somehow gain his approval or to make him proud. They are currently unaware of his husk condition or that Ivy isn't his real familiar.

Thierry's frequent disparaging remarks towards Lucy have had a great negative effect on their self-esteem, and after nearly a full week of being given the cold shoulder, Lucy became convinced that Thierry resents their existence and wishes they had been killed in the fight with Su-Yeong. On some level, Thierry does resent them, blaming them for the incident five years ago that burned down his shared home with Joe Rothart, though he insists to Ivy that Lucy is ungrateful for thinking that he wants them dead.

Philomena Vasillia
Lucy and Philomena have a tense relationship. Lucy is envious of Philomena's loving family life, adoring friend group, and place of societal privilege, and they resent her for taking it all for granted. They're particularly frustrated by her attempts to relate to them, since they feel that their situations are completely incomparable. Most of the time, the two of them simply trade sarcastic remarks.

When Philomena inadvertently discovers that Lucy can't use magic, she tries to use that knowledge to become closer to them. They rebuff her, offended that she thought they would be grateful and "run crying into [her] arms" because she assumed their lack of magical ability was comparable to her low magical ability.

After learning of Lucy's secret, Philomena is guilty and reluctant to talk to them. During the fifth test round, when Ana publicly humiliated them, she tried to get her to stop by announcing they couldn't defend themselves or use magic. Unfortunately, this didn't work, and Ana brushed it off as "not [her problem] anymore."

Ana Ramone
Lucy and Ana have a contentious relationship. Ana resents Lucy for their superior act, believing that they isolate themselves because they think they're better than everyone else. She's especially bothered that they haven't been eliminated from the contest yet, believing that they're cheating to get by. Ana frequently makes mean-spirited remarks to Lucy, but rather than snapping back like they do with Philomena, Lucy simply withdraws.

Ana enjoys watching Lucy squirm, as seen in the fourth test round when she berated them while they were immobilized and in the fifth test round when she fought them with a painful magic whip and said various cruel things to them in front of everyone watching. For the most part, Lucy doesn't fight back, but after Philomena revealed their secret, they used their ability to manipulate magic to get back at Ana, attacking her with the same whip she had used on them and draining her of most of her magical energy.

Tobi
Lucy first met Tobi when they had a breakdown underneath his doorway. He cheered them up, telling them frankly how impressed he was that they went out of their way to help out the street kids. He confided to them that most magicians ignored those without magic, that he kept a pet rat to avoid this treatment, and that he was grateful that Lucy was kind to the children even though they weren't magicians. Because of this, Lucy developed a crush on Tobi.

Peony, Hanzi, Billy, Martha, Rascal
Although Lucy hasn't spoken to most of the market kids except for Peony, they go out of their way to look out for them. The kids admire Lucy to the point of being starstruck, and they all clamored to partner up with them for the fourth test round.

Peony in particular adores Lucy, cheering them up when they have a breakdown over not being able to use magic.

Other representative contestants
Because they keep to themselves, Lucy hasn't spoken directly to most of the other contestants on-panel. Tetsu is cordial to them, though they had no reservations about shooting Lucy in the fourth test round while the latter was immobilized until Broom Girl stopped them. Even though Broom Girl views Lucy as a friend, they tend to interpret her overtures of friendship as rude or demeaning and didn't realize she liked them until she put herself at risk to help them escape from legal trouble at the end of the fifth test round.

Abilities
Although Lucy can't generate magic normally, they have the ability to manipulate magic generated by other people and to drain magicians of nearly all their magical energy. This ability was hinted at when Su-Yeong tried to use it to kill Philomena, and fully displayed when Lucy fought Ana.

Lucy is a talented seamstress, making all of their clothes by hand. They take great pride in this skill, bragging about the intricate, stylish costume they put together for the fourth test round.

Lucy is also skilled at sleight of hand, regularly sneaking the market kids a great deal of food without anyone suspecting the theft.