Rae Taylor

 (レイ・テイラー), also known as Rei Taylor, is the main protagonist of the I'm in Love with the Villainess light novel and manga series. She is a former office lady who reincarnated into her favorite otome game, Revolution, as its player character. She becomes Claire François' maid and a member of the Academy Knights.

She also plays a supporting role and is the title character in the spin-off series, She's so Cheeky for a Commoner.

Appearance
Rei Oohashi (Pre-Isekai Rei / OL Rei) Pre-reincarnation Rei has short dark hair and is described as being tall. She wears glasses and has bags under her eyes due to being overworked.

Rae Taylor Rae has short black hair and eyes in the light novel. In the manga, she has dark brown hair and brown (later red) eyes. Her anime appearance is similar to her manga counterpart.

She is commonly seen wearing her Royal Academy uniform, which consists of a red jacket with gold lines, a white ruffled necktie, a red bow tie with an attached blue gem, and a long black skirt with white lines. Along with her uniform, she wears black leggings and brown shoes. When attending Claire as a maid, she wears a white ruffled maid apron atop her Royal Academy uniform.

During her time in the Imperial Academy, she wears the academy's military-style uniform. Its navy collared dress includes gold lines, gold buttons, white diamond like-insignia on one of its sleeves, and white frills at the end of the dress. Along with this, she wears a black tie, a black belt, black stocking, and white boots.

Personality
Rae deliberately plays herself up as being a foolishly happy-go-lucky girl who is obsessed with gaining Claire's affection. However, in reality, this is more of a coping mechanism brought about by her early experiences with exploring her sexuality. She is actually far less open with her true feelings, often bottling them up and covering it with humor.

She seeks for Claire's affection and is serious about her love. Although she openly displays her love for Claire and appears to disregard the noble's disapproval of it, she prioritizes the noble's happiness before her own's (even if it hurts her true feelings). This goes to the point where she sets aside her own feelings and encourages Claire to be with Thane Bauer, the noble's crush at the time. This mindset manifested from her past experiences and the knowledge that Claire is not interested in women. However, when Manaria Sousse transfers to the Royal Academy and becomes really close to Claire, Rae struggles to contain her own bottled up feelings due to the fact that the Manaria is a woman. Rae persists and remains thinking that if Claire is happy, she is "happy". This mindset changes when confronted on if she is even serious about her love for Claire and there is a chance of the noble being together with Manaria, which prompts Rae to take extreme actions to defend her own feelings for Claire.

Even though Rae openly expresses her love for Claire, she herself is oblivious to the signs of being loved. While Rae runs her errands and accompanies Claire on a hot day, she is confused on why Claire would want to follow her outside in such heat. She does not notice that the noble simply wanted to go on a date with her. On another occasion, during their vacation, Claire asks Rae to sleep in the same bed as her, justifying that the bed is "big" for one. Not getting the hint, Rae insists that she will sleep on the floor while Claire sleeps on the bed by herself due to the actual small bed size. Her obliviousness also applies to other girls attracted to her. When Lilly Lilium asks Rae out for a tea party, Rae does not think much of it and accepts the invitation, which Claire interrupts after noticing that Lilly was aiming to go on a date with Rae.

According to the game's plot, the original Rae Taylor had many saint-like characteristics to which the reincarnated Rae Taylor considered troublesome. Prior to the story, Rae has been friends with Misha Jur for 10 years.

Background
Rei Oohashi is a former office lady who died of overwork and found herself reincarnated in the world of her favorite otome game, Revolution, assuming the role and identity of Rae Taylor. Her encyclopedic knowledge of Revolution comes from a plethora of sources such as memorizing the kingdoms history for the Liberal Arts exam, multiple playthroughs of the game, and studying all the secondary materials released about the game. Her motivation to understand all the details led her to consume all fan made materials and she was a perfectionist in the doujin novels she produced as well.

Rae was accepted into the Royal Academy, where the story takes place, by scoring well in examinations and earning a scholarship to attend.

Powers and abilities

 * Modern Knowledge: Rae retains all her knowledge from modern-day Japan, including recipes and bookkeeping techniques.
 * Game Knowledge: Rae was a huge fan of the game Revolution, having an almost encyclopedic knowledge of its world, characters, and events.
 * Familiar: The water slime she names Ralaire, a combination of Rae and Claire.
 * Dual-caster: She has the highest magical aptitude, super, in both water and earth magic.
 * Spells:
 * Cocytus : An extremely powerful technique that combines Earth and Water magic to freeze everything within a range of its epicenter.
 * Detoxification : (Water Magic): Counteract and neutralize the effects of a particular poison.
 * This spell is highly specific and requires knowledge of the poison.
 * Earth Wall : Basic: A regular strength wall made with common earth materials.
 * Advanced: An extremely durable wall made of tungsten carbide, material only known by people with knowledge of another world.
 * Earth Spike : A massive pillar of rock bursts through the ground from underneath her opponent.
 * Enchant Water : Bestows water attribute magic to another user's spell, augmenting its strength in the process.
 * Freeze : Ensnares the target within a large block of ice rendering it paralyzed in most cases.
 * Judecca : (Water Magic): Manipulates the water vapor in the air enough to obscure her opponent's vision with fog.
 * Sleep : (Water Magic): A support spell that puts a target into a deep sleep to help restore stamina.
 * Advanced: Enhanced Sleep : A high level sleep spell that renders the target unconscious on the spot.
 * Stone Arrows: A basic level low damage, small earth projectile.
 * Advanced: Tungsten Carbide Bullets : The strongest Earth projectile possible.
 * Shut (Earth Magic): A trap spell where a thick rock wall imprisons the opponent.
 * Water Barrier : A wall of water that is most effective in defending against fire magic.
 * Used against the Chimera's fire breath, Rae's version is extremely advanced due to how powerful fire breath is.
 * Said to be able to set mountains ablaze.
 * Water Meteor - An attack that utilizes both water and earth magic in the form of a large sphere of bodies of water and pieces of rock.
 * Water Meteor - An attack that utilizes both water and earth magic in the form of a large sphere of bodies of water and pieces of rock.

Trivia

 * The "零" in 大橋 零 (Oohashi Rei) commonly translates to "zero", possibly alluding Rei's life being far emptier before reincarnating.
 * Oohashi Rei's appearance is first seen in the first episode of the manga.
 * She looks like, but not exactly, Rae Taylor.
 * Rae's hair has been kept short since her reincarnation into Bauer, but it was long when she was a student and an office worker.
 * She is not comfortable with long hair because it is difficult to take care of in the Revolution world; as it lacks the Modern haircare products.
 * Oohashi Rei was from a rural area but started living alone in Tokyo after enrolling into university.
 * She had a girlfriend which she brought home but it's not known if they ever lived together.
 * At some point, Rei forgave Misaki and her friends from high school, as well as a few other people that could be called her best friends.
 * Rei acquired her cooking skills by caring for her younger brother.
 * Her parents often work and left home together.
 * Rei naturally took care of the housework.
 * As a college student, Rei was not a very serious student.
 * Earned her driver's license in college.
 * Her father wouldn't allow her to drive a motorcycle because he was concerned for her safety.
 * She commuted to school exclusively by bicycle.
 * She started going to lesbian bars and had same-sex lovers, but none of them lasted long.
 * Perhaps she was still reeling from the scars of her high school days.
 * Rei most enjoyed studying gender theory and philosophy.
 * Rei has been writing fanfiction about Claire since she was in college.
 * In the interlude of the second volume of the manga version, Claire has a chance to see it.
 * Rei was a difficult person to befriend but she had a few deep friendships as opposed to the broad and shallow romantic relationships.
 * A girlfriend at the time introduced Rei to Revolution.
 * Once she started playing, she began her lifestyle as an otaku.
 * From that point on, her activities as an otaku became more important to her than finding romance.
 * Rei knew that Claire in Revolution was an objectively unlikeable character, so she didn't argue with people online but instead tried to promote Claire's appeal in her fanfiction.
 * Rei first learned about tungsten carbide during her training period after she joined a trading company and before she was assigned to the auditing department.
 * It was because one of the products they handled at their company was made of this material.
 * While working at a company, Rei's only source of entertainment was games, specifically love simulation games. Rei will essentially play any game which includes board games and card games. She's shown to be adept at both chess and poker due to their inclusion as minigames in Revolution.
 * Her job at a black company was changed to a small business which still overworked her.
 * Rei has been a gyudon lover since her days at the company.
 * She didn't have the energy to cook complete meals so the quick, inexpensive and filling gyudon was her go to each time.
 * In a weekly stream, Inori-sensei revealed that Rae loves penguins.
 * If Rae were a dog, she would be a golden retriever.
 * Rae's birthday is July 19th, the same as the author, Inori-Sensei.
 * Rae is based off someone Inori-Sensei knows in real life, her partner Aki.
 * While not stated, Rae may be masochistic; given she enjoys the bullying Claire put her through. Even demanding she slap her or verbally abuse her.
 * During a visit during a fan-run event, Inori-sensei answered a fan's question about Rae's love for Claire.
 * "If there is a possibility of baldness, [it would more likely happen to Rae.]"
 * "... but even if Claire were to go bald, Rae's love for her would not change."
 * The original Rae Taylor doesn't study very much.
 * Rae seems to attract other lesbian affections to herself or awaken their sexuality without meaning to.
 * Claire François awoke her bisexual feelings.
 * Manaria Sousse (already a lesbian) became attracted to Rae.
 * Lilly Lilium became smitten with Rae.
 * Lana Lahna became interested in Rae.
 * Claire points this out and calls Rae a "womanizer", which greatly confuses her.
 * Rae's marriage to Claire does not seem to discourage Manaria's, Lilly's, and Lana's attraction towards Rae.
 * Lilly and Lana even suggests to be Rae's mistress and attempt to make advances on her, which Claire angrily rejects.
 * Ironically, in SSCC, after Rae declines Rod Bauer's proposal and affirms her interest in Claire, Claire briefly fantasies a life where she and Rae are together and would not mind Lilly as Rae's mistress.
 * Rae's hair color and eye color switches in the light novel and manga series.
 * In the web novel and GL Bunko publication, she has black hair and eyes. However, in the Ichijinsha publication, she is shown to have dark brown hair and eyes.
 * Her manga appearance in earlier volumes has brown eyes. But later in the series, the mangaka draws her with red eyes instead.
 * This is more apparent in the series' merchandise and promotional art following the release of volume 5 and the announcement of the anime.
 * Rae is well-versed in sexual techniques. Something that gets reference as a joke at the end of Chapter 27's fan translation.
 * Considering her last life and numerous lovers, it's no surprise.