History YMMV / HereticalEdge

** Kushiel crossed it by keeping numerous [[BreedingSlaves breeding slaves]], experimenting on children, and in particular running torturous experiments on her own disabled daughter to the point where she drove said daughter insane in an attempt to 'fix' her disability.

** Chronologically, [[TheNecromancer Fossor]] crossed this line by murdering countless numbers of his own people in order to use their ghosts to get around the {{Curse}} meant to keep him off earth (which he continues to do in the present day). In-story, he crossed it by kidnapping and enslaving Flick's mother, and then telling Flick how much fun he's going to have doing the same to her once she's no longer protected by the deal he made with Joselyn.

** Flick pays a ''lot'' of attention to Avalon's attractiveness. It's a big clue to her [[BiTheWay bisexuality]].

* BrokenBase: A bit of a base breaking situation came with the revelation that [[spoiler: Scott Utell is a pooka, which let him resurrect after Fossor and Ammon murdered him]]. A number of readers felt this was an {{Asspull}}. The seeming universality of this opinion led Cerulean to change it [[spoiler: so Scott was human and thus remained dead]], which led to a minor InternetBackdraft when the people who were fine with it learned about the edit and made their displeasure clear, which convinced him to change it back.

* HarsherInHindsight: [[spoiler: Every negative thought or statement Flick makes about her mother becomes painful to read when it's revealed why Joselyn disappeared. This is not lost on Flick.]]
** Wyatt Rendell's over-enthusiasm and extreme paranoia become much less amusing when you learn he's like that because he learned as a teenager that [[spoiler: his "parents" never cared about him and are willing to murder him if ordered to. He's spent most of his life moving from place to place whenever he discovers someone is spying on him, which happens about once a year.]]

* LesYay: Flick pays a ''lot'' of attention to Avalon's attractiveness. It's a big clue to her [[BiTheWay bisexuality]].

** Chronologically, [[TheNecromancer Fossor]] crossed this line by murdering countless scores of his own people in order to use their ghosts to get around the {{Curse}} meant to keep him off earth (which he continues to do in the present day). In-story, he crossed it by [[spoiler: kidnapping and enslaving Flick's mother, and then telling Flick how much fun he's going to have doing the same to her once she's no longer protected by the deal he made with Joselyn.]]

* TheWoobie: ''All over the place.'' Seriously. We're not going to go into details because that would take up most of the page, but Flick, Avalon, Asenath, Scout, Shiori Porter, Sariel Moon, Vanessa Moon, her brother Tristan Moon, [[spoiler: Joselyn Atherby]], Lincoln Chambers, Deveron Adams, Wyatt Rendell, Koren Fellows (''especially'' after Thanksgiving), Roxa Pittman, [[spoiler: Tabbris]] and Virginia Dare are all riding TheWoobie train. If you want details, check out their character entries.

** ShipToShipCombat: Flick/Avalon vs Flick/Shiori. Pretty low key as far as Shipping Wars go (no [[FlameWar Flame Wars]] yet), but the debate is definitely there.

** Sariel Moon can infiltrate anything.

* TheWoobie: ''All over the place.'' Seriously. We're not going to go into details because that would take up most of the page, but Flick, Avalon, Asenath, Scout, Shiori Porter, Vanessa Moon, her brother Tristan Moon, [[spoiler: Joselyn Atherby]], Lincoln Chambers, Deveron Adams, Wyatt Rendell, Koren Fellows (''especially'' after Thanksgiving), Roxa Pittman, and Virginia Dare are all riding TheWoobie train. If you want details, check out their character entries.

** [[spoiler: Given that there's a conspiracy against her that makes extensive use of mind manipulation, this is probably a deliberate plot element.]]

* BrokenBase: A bit of a base breaking situation came with the revelation that [[spoiler: Scott Utell is a pooka, which let him resurrect after Fossor and Ammon murdered him]]. A number of readers felt this was an {{Asspull}}. The seeming universality of this opinion led Cerulean to change it [[spoiler: so Scott was human and thus remained dead]], which led to a minor InternetBackdraft when the people who were fine with it learned about the edit and made their displeasure clear.

** OneTrueThreesome: The reaction of some readers to the above LoveTriangle is "why not both?"

* TheWoobie: ''All over the place.'' Seriously. We're not going to go into details because that would take up most of the page, but Flick, Avalon, Scout, Shiori Porter, Vanessa Moon, her brother Tristan Moon, [[spoiler: Joselyn Atherby]], Lincoln Chambers, Deveron Adams, Wyatt Rendell, Koren Fellows (''especially'' after Thanksgiving), and Roxa Pittman are all riding TheWoobie train. If you want details, check out their character entries.

* TheWoobie: ''All over the place.'' Seriously. We're not going to go into details because that would take up most of the page, but Flick, Avalon, Scout, Shiori Porter, Vanessa Moon, her brother Tristan Moon, [[spoiler: Joselyn Atherby]], Lincoln Chambers, Deveron Adams, Wyatt Rendell, Koren Fellows (''especially'' after Thanksgiving) are all riding TheWoobie train. If you want details, check out their character entries.

* TheWoobie: ''All over the place.'' Seriously.
** Flick was abandoned by her loving mother at age seven, and is still extremely hurt and confused a decade later. Her abandonment issues were compounded later in life when her best friend had to move away, leading her to basically give up on forming close relationships with people other than her dad until she came to Crossroads. [[spoiler: And all that bitterness over her mother leaving turns into crushing guilt when she learns ''why'' her mother left. But even then, she can't tell her dad to ease ''his'' pain, because he's a Bystander and he can't retain any memories of the supernatural. Oh, and the guy who abducted her mom (one of the single most powerful, terrifying, and evil Strangers around) is still planning to do the same to her as soon as he can.]]
** Avalon is a bit of a StoicWoobie, as well as a slight JerkassWoobie, due to the way she has to deal with a fair amount of prejeduice at Crossroads for being a former Eden's Garden student. [[spoiler: It dips into IronWoobie territory when we learn about her backstory. Avalon was viciously abused for the first eleven years of her life, her biological father became a vampire and now tries to kill her at least once a year, she was forced to leave her first happy home at the Garden when an EntitledBastard former friend of hers tried to rape her and she killed him in self defense, and now she has to deal with people actively trying to assassinate her.]]
** Scout was the sole witness to the Stranger attack that claimed her mother, which left her with extreme shyness and difficulty speaking. [[spoiler: Also, she's been hiding the truth of what happened that day because she's afraid of how her sister and father will react to it.]]
** Shiori Porter has a DarkSecret that she feels she can't trust ''anyone'' with, because she's convinced that she'll be killed if it gets out. [[spoiler: Her biological mother is the vampire Jiao, and Crossroads propaganda about Strangers has convinced her that she's just as much of a monster as her biological family supposedly is.]]
** Vanessa Moon lost her family to a Stranger attack when she was seven, and was forced to watch as they were flung across multiple worlds. Then she spent the next decade of her life being told that she imagined the whole thing by the authorities until she learned to keep quiet about it.
** Tristan Moon, Vanessa's twin brother, has spent the last decade trapped on an alien world, totally cut off from the rest of humanity and stuck with LaserGuidedAmnesia that keeps him from remembering his parents or sister. Fortunately the Meregan found him and took him into their care, so he's a lot better off than he might be otherwise. But every so often his cheerful demeanor cracks and you can see how lonely he is. Poor kid. [[spoiler: Also, he's five years younger than he should be due to having spent that time TakenForGranite, but he doesn't seem to mind.]]
** [[spoiler: Joselyn Atherby, Flick's mother. She started a revolution to stop Crossroads from murdering innocent Strangers and was consequently imprisoned for decades, [[UnPerson Un-Personed]] by a magic spell, stripped of her powers and memories, and forcibly separated from three of her children (first from her infant twins when Crossroads kidnapped them in 1964 and later from Felicity when Fossor abducted her in 2007). She's now spent more than a decade as a slave to one of the most evil Strangers to walk the earth and has had to watch her kidnapper raise [[ChildByRape their son]] into a [[TheSociopath sociopathic]] SerialKiller. As if all that wasn't enough, WordOfGod states that Fossor has not only taunted Joselyn about how he's still going to kidnap Felicity when she turns eighteen, but also has made no secret of how much Flick hated her for disappearing.]]
** Flick's dad Lincoln was was deeply in love with wife and totally blindsided when she ditched their family for some random guy she pulled over. He still wears his wedding ring over a decade later because he's holding out hope that she'll come back. [[spoiler: As a Bystander, he's incapable of learning the truth of what happened and is helpless to defend himself against supernatural threats like Ammon.]]
** Deveron Adams becomes a JerkassWoobie once we learn what happened to him over the summer break. [[spoiler: Of course, the Jerkass part is actually a JerkassFacade. It turns out that Deveron is Joselyn Atherby's first husband, so his Woobieness starts at the same time, the abduction of their infant children. After spending decades looking for them, he was robbed of his memories of his wife until her allies found him and restored them years later, after Fossor abducted her. Then he learns that Joselyn married someone else while amnesiac and had another daughter when she sends him a message asking him to protect her (which he does wholeheartedly). So now he's undercover at Crossroads trying to secretly protect his stepdaughter and find his still missing children while living with the knowledge that his wife is in the hands of one of the most evil monsters on the face of the planet.]]
** Wyatt Rendell, the overenthusiastic security guard at Crossroads Academy. At first he just seems like plucky comic relief. Then you learn why he's like that and everything about him becomes heartbreaking. [[spoiler: It starts with his childhood, where his parents would harshly punish him for even the slightest transgression. The reason they were like that? It's because they're not his parents. They're Heretics loyal to Ruthers that were ready and willing to kill him if Ruthers ever orders them to, which Wyatt learned one night by eavesdropping on them. He still doesn't know ''why'' his fake parents were spying on him (because he's Joselyn Atherby's son and their orders were to kill him if Joselyn ever told anyone how she was "captured"), he just knows that he can't trust ''anyone'', because many people who are friendly to him really are spies. His entire life has been one long nightmare of completely justified paranoia.]]

** Deveron Adams becomes a JerkassWoobie once we learn what happened to him over the summer break. [[spoiler: Of course, the Jerkass part is actually a JerkassFacade. It turns out that Deveron is Joselyn Atherby's first husband, so his Woobieness starts at the same time, the abduction of their infant children. After spending decades looking for them, he was robbed of his memories of his wife until her allies found him and restored them years later, after Fossor abducted her. Then he learns that Joselyn married someone else while amnesiac and had another daughter when she sends him a message asking him to protect her (which he does wholeheartedly). So now he's undercover at Crossroads trying to secretly protect his stepdaughter and find his still missing children while living with the knowledge that his wife is in the hands of one of the most evil monsters on the face of the planet.]]