Video Game / Hello Charlotte

Won't you join them for dream-seeing? ^* From top to bottom: Seth, Charlotte and Felix

"Inside a dream, I laugh, and the world laughs with me. Inside a dream, I forget, and the world forgets with me. Inside a dream, I am the world. Hello, world! Hello, Charlotte!"

—Episode 2's introduction

Hello, new Puppeteer! You have been assigned a young puppet named Charlotte Wiltshire: a twelve-year-old girl with a... peculiar home life, living among aliens, a hybrid between a cat and a maggot, and sometimes, the mysterious "Umbrella Man" comes to visit her. One day, Dr. Huxley, one of the residents of The House, asks Charlotte to take care of his nephew, a disagreeable ten-year-old named Felix. After Charlotte decides to take a small nap, Felix disappears, and the living room's TV screen looks a little different than it did before...

After that day, things change for Charlotte and her household.

Hello Charlotte is an Estonian episodic Adventure Game series made in RPG Maker VX by etherane. The series consists of three episodes, three spinoffs, and a variety of supplementary materials found in etherane's social media. Though it originally began as a throwaway project, each episode adds layers of complexity and new characters to expand upon the original's world, culminating in a third game that is both a prequel and a sequel, tying everything together into a larger story about loss, grief, and the role fiction plays in the way we see the world around us and each other. The series consists of:

• Episode 1: Junk Food, Gods and Teddy Bears: Released on June 17th, 2015; can be downloaded for free here, or as a demo in the game's official Steam page. The game follows Charlotte and Felix as they try and make it back to The House, trapped in the "TV World" where they literally channel-hop through different dimensions, coming into contact with a race of aliens known as the "Pythias" and the mysterious "Oracle" that rules them.

• Episode 2: Requiem Aeternam Deo: Released on October 8th, 2016; can be bought here, or as the full game on Steam. After the events of Episode 1, Charlotte has taken the dying Oracle into herself and is suffering from an ink cough that signals her physical health gradually worsening over time. As the Oracle wakes up inside her mind, taking the name of "Frei" and goading her into merging into one all-powerful being, Charlotte meets "C", a boy who seems to know the truth about the nature of the world, putting Charlotte at odds with her best friend Anri. Charlotte must navigate all of this while waiting for the ominous "Trial", soon to take place in her school.

• Hello Charlotte: Delirium: A very short Spin-Off puzzle game, released on June 24th, 2017. It can be downloaded here. In a World… where Charlotte never thought up the idea of a kind observer to guide her, thanks to Seth giving up their name to save Charlotte, she's grown up to be a much more bloodthirsty girl, surrounded by equally deranged housemates. When her girlfriend, Anri, goes missing in the TV World, Charlotte sets out to find her, wielding the power of the Oracle she killed and absorbed into herself to consume anything in her path. Etherane isn't particularly fond of this game, and it stands as the only fully non-canonical entry in the story.

• Episode 3: Childhood's End: Released on January 5, 2018; Can be bought here, or on Steam. Childhood's End is divided into two chapters:
  • Episode 0 - And so it Goes: Follows a different Charlotte Wiltshire, named "Unit Q84", as she goes about her daily business in a much Darker and Edgier version of The House. After school, she gathers The White Society to record the Execution Hour, where students get to vote on their fellow classmates to be executed live on television, fully aware they're all NPCs in a video game that she has no control over. She is opposed by Scarlett Eyler, the Student Council President, who has an agenda of her own. Meanwhile, elsewhere, Charles Eyler learns his online friend, "C", is planning to commit suicide, while his best friend Anri is moving away from town. To make matters worse, he is haunted by the Tulpa of Scarlett Eyler, his unborn sister, whom he can only keep away through liberal use of antipsychotics, as his grip on reality begins to loosen.
  • Episode 3 - Childhood's End: Follows Scarlett Eyler as she tries to find her classmate, Charlotte Wiltshire, who has just ascended to godhood and subsequently killed everyone in her school. In escaping, she finds herself in Charlotte's home, where she meets Felix Honikker and Charlotte's other housemates. Compelled by an unknown voice calling to her, and newfound contact with Charlotte's puppeteer, Scarlett sets off to find Charlotte and make sense of just what is going on around her. Meanwhile, Charles Eyler explains the nature of the world to Q84.

• Heaven's Gate: A very short Spin-Off kinetic novel, released on September 28th, 2017. Can be downloaded here, and was later released on Steam on October 4th, 2018. The story acts as an epilogue of sorts by showing a version of the True Realm where Charles' life was somewhat easier, as he met Vincent at an early age, did not have to say goodbye to Anri, and his mother was able to hang onto her sanity. Because of this, Scarlett Eyler never came into being. While this might sound like a Lighter and Softer take on the story; Charles' childhood is anything but comforting for himself or his loved ones, who still must contend with the reality of coming of age in an imperfect world. The Steam Updated Re-release includes Downloadable Content in the form of a series of diary entries from Episode 3's version of Anri, showing the events of that game through her perspective, and providing clarity on the fate of Charles and his mother.

• Rehab Friday ~with Henry Huxley~: An upcoming Spin-Off Puzzle Game starring Dr. Huxley. As of now, little is known about it or its contents, other than it takes place on the alien world of Uberia, where Huxley and his alien workers originate from, and seems to star children named after the workers in the house. Whether it will have any connection to Hello Charlotte remains to be seen.

Though originally intended as a simple puzzle game to experiment with, the series would eventually develop into a much more personal project for etherane, who would go on to expand on the world of the series in her social media through Concept Art and Alternate Continuity speculations, mostly through Tumblr. Unfortunately, much of the supplemental material found in these posts was lost when etherane deleted most of her social media presence, remaining only in the fan-run Hello Charlotte wiki and a scattered few other sites.

In late 2022, etherane began an interactive Alternate Reality Game on twitter, in the form of polls wherein Q84 asked her twitter followers to help her nurture a parasitic organism within the body of one of her classmates, also providing some closure on Delirium's version of Charlotte, showing what Charles is up to, and generally providing cameo appearances by every other major secondary character. This concluded with Rendevouz with the Other, a short comic digging deeper into Q84's past and explaining how she came to obtain her nihilistic outlook on reality. Other than that, however, very few other materials remain available online.

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Hello Charlotte provides examples of the following tropes:

• Absurdism: The first episode wanders into this territory at times, especially in the House and in the bear level.
• Abusive Parents: Anri's parents are stated to be putting enormous academic pressure on her.
  • Averted and discussed with regards to Charles' mother, Lilith. What makes it hard for him to blame her for his psychosis is the fact that she never stopped trying to provide for him and never actually abused him in any way; her mental and physical health deteriorated over time, but even when she's bedridden and delirious she tries to be encouraging and kind to Charles. Heaven's Gate shows that, had she managed to keep herself healthy and sane, things would've turned out much better for him.
• Advert-Overloaded Future: The televisions appear to show only commercials on most channels.
  • In Episode 3, the Player is treated to commercials from an "ether solutions", selling various health and lifestyle products.
• A God Am I: C introduces himself this way in both Episode 2 and Episode 3.
• Alien Geometries: Everywhere, from the House to Charlotte's School.
• Art Shift: Depending on who The Player is controlling, the art style varies in Episode 3.
• Behavioral Conditioning: Charlotte's classmates at school. In Episode 3, Q84 deliberately causes this by infecting them with the white flu.
• Beneficial Disease: In Episode 3, Scarlett Eyler catches word flu after entering the fourth floor, which allows her to understand what it's residents are saying.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Anri in Episode 2. Episode 0 has the complete opposite dynamic between her and Charlotte, and Episode 3 shows her in a much more human light.
• Blackmail: One of Anri's Skills is this, hinting that things may not be what they appear. This is true for all versions of her.
  • Even better, in Episode 2, said Skill is a guaranteed One-Hit Kill.
• Blood from the Mouth: Subverted. It's ink.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Examining Charlotte's dresser in the second episode results in the description, "Clothes, hairpins, microchips, cockroaches... one of these items is not like the others."
• Break the Cutie:
  • Episode 2: Charlotte.
  • Episode 0: Charles.
  • Episode 3: Scarlett.
• Broken Ace: Scarlett Eyler is the ideal student rep, boasting good looks, good grades^note Although checking her student file reveals her grades are actually mediocre, and an assertive, charismatic personality. She also takes it upon herself to brutalize Charlotte Q84 a number of times to prevent her from destroying the House. She does all this because she knows there's something wrong about her existence, but can't quite place her finger on what it is until she forcefully uses the linq drug with Charlotte, leading her to regain her memories of the True Realm.
• Body Horror: And how. Especially circumstances involving the Oracle. Some of the bad endings also show this with Charlotte in the first and second games.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Felix and Charlotte in Episode 1, C and Charlotte (again) in Episode 2. Etherane has joked that Charlotte might "have a type", which is Hilarious in Hindsight given that Charles certainly did.
• Cannot Tell Fiction from Reality: Charlotte in episode 1. Episode 3 elaborates on this, where Scarlett's psyche was so damaged by Mother and the Parasite that, upon becoming Charlotte, she was left far more unstable, and The House became entirely fictional in her world, since Scarlett never came to accept its existence before the events of episode 3. Subverted in Q84's case, as she is very aware of the difference.
• Chaos Architecture: The House appearance is different in each game.
• Chuunibyou: Charles and Vincent bond over this. Though she may not want to admit it, Anri is, too.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Anri in Episode 2.
• Cloud Cuckooland: Charlotte is rather odd, and some of the places she ends up in are even more so, such as the door that leads to another galaxy. It has no consequence other than making Charlotte the queen of this galaxy.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Charlotte and C.
  • Also use their own Cloud Cuckoo Language, although, from the Player's perspective, it's difficult to pick up on at first.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Charlotte from Episode 1 and 2 is a Nice Girl who doesn't want to trouble anyone, and willingly sacrifices herself in multiple occasion for the wellbeing of others. Q84 wants to kill anyone she sees as a threat and runs a society that serves to reduce the population of the school and scare anyone who thinks about harming her as a way to avoid the tragic fate of all Charlottes, thanks to being watched over by Charles, under the guise of C, who has taken a liking to her.
• Corrupt the Cutie: All Charlottes go through this, as they are all made to suffer without fighting back. This is why Charlotte is "the perfect protagonist".
• Crapsack World: And how.
• Creepy Cleanliness: The House is by and large a disturbingly featureless locale, consisting of sparsely decorated white rooms. This may be a reflection of Charles' psychosis, as he was a notorious germophobe. This is especially notable in Q84's version of the house, as her obsession with remaining "pure white" means there is rarely a single color to be seen in the house.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Oracles, to the Pythias. It doesn't last.
• Cute and Psycho: Q84, for sure.
• Death Is Cheap: Charlotte Q84 goes through this. Every time she dies her memories are merely copied onto a new body. She abuses this frequently. It's implied, however, that there's a limit to this ablity.
• Death Seeker: C is searching for a way to leave his mortal body, but cannot simply kill himself due to heavy surveillance and his own fear of death. It's later revealed that This is because all the Vincents in The House are hard-coded to commit suicide, as Charles only met the real Vincent once, when the latter killed himself.
  • OSIRIS is revealed to be contemplating the idea after he forcefully attempts to pointlessly sacrifice himself to help Charlotte save Anri in Delirium. Charlotte robs him of the opportunity by saving her without his help, much to his dismay.
  • Vincent plans his suicide months in advance, and Episode 3 also heavily implies Scarlett/Charlotte became suicidal after killing the Pythia in Episode 1, hence the viciously cruel environment of Episode 2.
  • Even in the Lighter and Softer world of Heaven's Gate, Vincent explicitly states that he unsuccessfully attempted suicide once. Except this time, Charles wasn't there to comfort him in his last moments.
• Deity of Human Origin:
  • Charlotte becomes one after she melds with the Oracle.
  • Delirium's Charlotte is this as well, but she has melded perfectly with the Oracle, so have no visible mutations and is able to use it's powers at will.
  • Charlotte V19 becomes this after using Mother's power, kicking off the events of Episode 3 proper.
  • By definition, Charlotte O91 is this as well, as she is the original Oracle seen in Episode 1.
• Dissonant Laughter: Q84 often laughs and smiles at extremely inappropriate moments.
• Doublethink: Anri compels Charlotte to engage in this after C's suspension.
  • Subverted in Episode 3, where the same dialogue from Episode 2 is used to show how the True Realm's Anri helped comfort Charles after he didn't stop Vincent's suicide.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Episode 1 is vastly different from Episode 2, both in design and in writing. etherane herself has admitted that the idea for the actual plot of Hello Charlotte as a whole came to her mid-development in Episode 1. Because of this, Episode 3 employs a heavy amount of Retcons, at the cost of opening up a few plotholes. Which is just fine, don't think about it too hard.
• Easily Impressed: Charlotte comes off as this at times. This is in contrast to Scarlett, who was far more observant before becoming Charlotte.
• Eldritch Abomination: A few, but the Oracle's true form is the main one.
• Eldritch Location: Most, if not all the areas that appear in Episode 1 are this, as are several areas that appear in Episode 2 and the Land of Meat and Machinery in Delirium.
• Empty Shell: The fate of students who fail The Trial.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: There are a lot of things that want Charlotte dead after she enters the TV World in Episode 1.
  • The same applies to Scarlett in Episode 3, but not so much Q84, since she can't die anyhow.
• Evil Feels Good: Delirium's Charlotte has no motive for killing others that her own entertainment, and she is the happiest out of all the Charlottes.
• Extra Eyes: The Pythians, Bennett and all of the Charlottes who merge with the Oracle. Bennett is different, since he is suffering from the Eye Plague, making them grow across his entire body.
• Fake Memories: It's implied most of the childhood memories from Episode 2 may be these, as they appear to be shared by all Charlottes. Episode 3 complicates things, Once it's revealed that the entire world was born from Charles' stories upon his death, meaning they simultaneously are "fake" memories, but they're still the backstory for Charlotte that is shared by all of them. Q84 and V19 are the only ones aware of this.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Q84 started out as a normal Charlotte, but when C told her that she was meant to be abused without fighting back for entertainment, she snapped and founded White Society, with the the goal of reducing the population of the school and act as a deterrent against anyone who might want to harm her.
  • V19 is implied to be this, although the first time we see her she's already killed everyone at school.
• Gone Horribly Right: In the White End of Episode 2, Charlotte merges with the Oracle and wishes for "all the painful things to end" and everyone's happiness. This happens, as everyone's mind and soul, with the exception of the Umbrella Man, is consumed by Charlotte. Umbrella Man lampshades this, saying that as long as free will exists, people will hurt others, so everyone must be stripped of their free will to stop anyone from getting hurt.
• Hallucinations: All of Charlotte's alien friends in Episode 1, but not in any other episodes. It is later explained that this is because Scarlett could never fully accept Charlotte's claims about the world they lived in, so all the people she met during her journey became imaginary in the new channel where she became Charlotte.
• Happy Ending Override: Episode 1 ends with Charlotte saving the Oracle's life by letting it inhabit her body as it dies, before returning to The House with Felix and having tea with the Umbrella Man. Episode 2 reveals that this didn't happen. She instead turned into a mass of gore upon returning through the TV, as her body could not contain the Oracle on its own. It's unclear how she recovered afterwards, but this is the cause for her deteriorating physical and mental health throughout the Episode.
• Heel–Face Brainwashing: In all stories, Charlotte does this to Aiden as a child, turning him from The Krampus into her loyal and supportive butler.
• Heroic BSoD: Charlotte has a severe panic attack after the teacher reveals that she accidentally poisoned a bunch of stray cats, killing them.
• Hive Mind: The Oracle is essentially this.
• Imaginary Friend: In the first two episodes, all the tenants of the House except Charlotte and the Umbrella Man.
  • Subverted in the other games, as only Scarlett's housemates turned out to be imaginary.
  • Scarlett herself, however, came into existence as a Tulpa of Charles' unborn sister, though that may be more accurately an example of a split personality.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: V19 does this to everyone at the School except Scarlett Eyler.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Felix, for all his grouching and snark, does seem to genuinely care about Charlotte's well-being, really deep down. Lampshaded by Felix himself, when Charlotte expresses surprise at his worry for her.
  • Of course, this makes perfect sense, as Felix was the first person to help Scarlett.
  • Q84 is definitely this, despite antagonizing and humiliating the members of the house to the point where they all come to hate her. When she discovers that Huxley intends to Body Surf into Felix, and keeps an entire basement full of spare clones of him, she can destroy all the tanks and tell Huxley that he has no choice but to treasure his nephew, before finding him and giving him a friendly flick on the forehead.
• Loners Are Freaks: One of the premises of the Trial. Someone who has SOCIALIZED often is more likely to get votes than someone who has no friends, like C.
  • This is, however, very much not the case in the True Realm.
• Loon with a Heart of Gold: Charlotte is easily the nicest character in the game, but she's...odd, to say the least. Deconstructed later on, as this turned out to be due to Scarlett's mind deteriorating under the pressure of Mother and the Parasite's influence.
• Mad Scientist: Huxley, and how!
  • To a lesser extent, Felix, as he is trying to create ice-9, a planet-destroying weapon of mass destruction taken from the pages of Cats Cradle. Why? Because he wants to be like his uncle.
• Malevolent Masked Men: The Executioners, Pythias who turned against the Oracle.
  • The Episode 3 version of Huxley is very much this.
• Mind Screw: Things can get very strange at times, not helped by the nonlinear nature of the narrative.
• Mind Virus: The plot of the game, and the true nature of the Player's relationship to the world of the narrative. To be clear, the player is the parasite upon the story, rather than it being the other way around. This is what makes Q84 and V19 both rebel against their assigned roles to suffer for the good of the plot.
  • Played a little more literally with references to Toxoplasma gondhii, an alveolate parasite that is carried by cats in real life, and which has been linked to adverse behavioral changes in both humans and mice.
• Never Be Hurt Again: Q84 vows this after a week of bullying, and it's implied that V19 came to a similar revelation.
• Never My Fault: The True Realm version of Anri uses this as a way to cope with her living situation.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Q84 hosts Execution Hour show where she gruesomely executes her classmates with a grin plastered on her face.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: In Delirium, Charlotte plays this role. It's played for laughs.
• No Medication for Me: Charlotte stops taking her medication between Episodes 1 and 2, Knowing the inhabitants of the House will cease to be if she goes back on her meds.
  • Subverted with Charles, who instead takes excessive amounts of antipsychotics to keep Scarlett away, eventually running out at a critical moment.
• Omnicidal Maniac: V19 to an extent.
• Our Souls Are Different: Everyone has their own soul cube, which contains their soul data. As data, it can be formatted and debugged, which is the purpose of the trial. The trial is suppose to help people deemed defective, but it actually just destroys the souls of people who don't conform to social norms. ^note  The trial works by giving everyone one vote, and anyone who doesn't get a vote is deemed defective
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Near the end of Episode 1, several Executioners block Charlotte and Felix's path, and will kill them if the see them. They disguise themselves by simply wearing Executioner masks.
• Player and Protagonist Integration: Of the Advisor and Controller variants. At the same time.
• Psychic Link: The drug Linq is used in Episode 3 as a means for lonely and paranoid people to share memories, sometimes forcibly, as Scarlett does to Charlotte in order to regain her memories of the True Realm.
• Punished for Sympathy: Charlotte may well already be a social outcast, but associating with C in school certainly doesn't help any.
• Public Execution: The Execution Hour, a show where Q84 executes people who White Society has voted to kill.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The player, and by extension the Audience. Also, Scarlett willingly infects herself with a parasite in Episode 3.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Half of Pythia race strongly disagrees with the Oracles' Assimilation Plot. They win.
  • After Q84 learns that her fate is to be abused without fighting back, she immediately fought back by killing anyone she saw as a threat.
• Sociopathic Hero: An interesting subversion: Q84 appears to understand her actions cause distress, and so does not lack empathy. While it appears that she ultimately does not care due to everyone around her being NPCs, it's heavily implied she just wants to be loved by someone.
  • Played straight in Delirium.
• Stress Vomit: Charlotte coughs up ink when she's under extreme duress in Episode 2.
• Stylistic Suck: The graphic design in the commercials from Episode 3 is intentionally horrendous, complete with tacky fonts, eye-searingly bright colors, poor photomanipulation (at one point, a Shutterstock watermark appears on an image), and heavy artifacting.
  • Arguably, Charlotte's art can be seen as this, as her drawings in Episode 2 are very childish.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Umbrella Man, C, and all Charlottes who've merged with the Oracle have these.
  • Anyone Charles or the Umbrella Man are possessing has these.
• Talking to Themself: Since nobody can see Seth, Charlotte appears to be talking to herself whenever she interacts with him. Charlotte also narrates her own actions aloud in Episode 1. Scarlett does this as well.
• Terrified of Germs: C is severely mysophobic, and Charles was this in life as well, which, combined with his schizophrenia, makes him view most people as being made of gross masses of gore. Seeing Anri and his mother becoming like this in his mind is what drives him past the Despair Event Horizon.
• The Bully: Episode 2 is filled with these, taking place mostly at Charlotte's school.
  • A key moment in Charles' life was watching one of his classmates regularly get beaten up by a pack of these. It's implied that this girl is the basis for Charlotte.
• The Unfavorite: Word of God suggests that this is the reason that Anri is the way she is.
  • This is confirmed in Heaven's Gate, where both Anri in that story and in Episode 3 express frustration at her brother seemingly being favored by her parents.
• This Loser Is You: As Charlotte's caretaker, part of the games' focus involves making you feel responsible every time Charlotte dies. The second episode's secret ending builds itself on making you feel really bad. In addition, the second episode, in particular, involves a number of unpleasant things happening to what are essentially children, from more mundane cases like bullying and emotional abuse, to surreal situations which are in themselves startlingly bleak metaphors for social integration and disintegration.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: The entirety of Episodes 1 and 2. Episode 3 explains this as the result of Scarlett's transformation into Charlotte molding the world she lives in.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Pretty much everyone in Episode 3. Inverted in that This turns out to be the true nature of The House, and Scarlett's version is a much Nicer And Softer one, as she was protected and aided by Felix and the others in her search for V19.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Most of the residents of the House (including Charlotte) seem to have done this in Episode 2, compared to the previous episode.
  • Except for Felix, who has grown aggressive and distant, especially towards Charlotte. After The Reveal of what truly happened to Charlotte at the end of Episode 1, one cannot blame him for flipping out.
  • The entire plot of Hello Charlotte is arguably this for Scarlett Eyler.
• Trauma Conga Line: One can argue that most of the cast, especially Charlotte herself as of Episode 2 has suffered or is suffering one.
  • In an optional section of Episode 2, Bennett is revealed to have basically been born to live one, but unlike most of the other cases, is mostly over it.
  • Charles had a rough life. His father, Seth, forced his mother, Lilith, to abort their second child, Scarlett, before abandoning them both. This leads Charles' mother to progressively deteriorate physically and mentally, until she is left bedridden and sees Charles as Scarlett. This causes him to develop a tulpa of Scarlett that torments him constantly. His only friends are a fellow writer by the handle "C", real name Vincent, who he meets online and is smitten by; and Henrietta "Anri" Warhol, a childhood classmate who makes him pretend to be her boyfriend in order to maintain her obsessive image of normalcy. When Vincent and Charles first meet in person, it's because Vincent wants someone to be there with him when he commits suicide by jumping off a roof. Anri then tells Charles she will be moving away, leaving Charles to live for nothing more than taking care of his mother. When his mother passes away, Charles is well and truly alone. It doesn't take long for him to drown himself in the ocean. The additional content for Heaven's Gate reveals that Anri tried to reach out to Charles multiple times after moving out, and that he managed to get into medical school, but his mental health deteriorated, making Charlotte and Scarlett develop into full-on split personalities that he had no control over.
• Uncanny Valley Girl: Delirium Charlotte, as well as Q84 to an extent.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Subverted. Charlotte is the nicest person in the series.
  • Played straight with Delirium's Charlotte and V19.
• White Mask of Doom: Worn by the Executioners, Pythias who turned against the Oracle.
  • Charlotte and Felix don these temporarily to sneak past some executioners.
  (After putting on the masks).
  Felix: How do I look?
  Charlotte: Rather menacing.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: Anri, revealing her orchestration of Charlotte's abuse over the course of Episode 2, implies it was to teach her "a lesson".
• Windmill Crusader: The first episode was originally intended to end in this, only for the next two episodes to subvert this.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Averted. Some of her classmates have no problem with beating up or manhandling Charlotte.
• Your Head A-Splode: Some students in Charlotte's school do this if she interacts with them. Nobody bats an eye at it.

Tropes exclusive to Heaven's Gate

• Abusive Parents: It's implied that Vincent's family life leaves a lot to be desired.
• Alternate Universe: The Heaven's Gate universe is a lot nicer all round, mainly due to the absence of Scarlett Eyler, the fact Charles and Vincent meet when they are children and that Anri doesn't move away, each having a positive effect on Charles. Perhaps most of all, however, Charles' mother somehow manages to remain relatively sane and functional.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: There are five interludes in the game, the first featuring Charlotte and Frei, the second, third and fifth featuring Bennett and Felix and the fourth is Aether Almanac, a story Vincent wrote.
• After-School Cleaning Duty: This is how Anri and Charles meet in this universe.
• Cult: Heaven's Gate, unrelated to the Real Life namesake. Vincent accidentally helps create it by helping write their online manifesto, leading to a mass suicide incident. It was meant to be a prank that got out of hand, according to him.
• Cult of Personality: Vincent's presence and natural charisma is described as such.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Suffice it to say, saving Vincent's life requires Charles to grow up a whole lot.
• Happy Ending: Charles' mother keeps her mental health, everyone lives, Charles, Vincent and Anri graduate together, and Charles manages to build up the courage to tell Vincent that he wants him to live when he finds out about his suicidal intentions. Though this isn't by any means a storybook ending, compared to how the events turned out in the regular continuity, this is the best possible outcome for all parties involved.
• Love Triangle: A very casual example. Anri and Charles are close enough that at one time they idly discuss if they're an item, but their relationship never becomes physical. Charles, on the other hand, spends the entire novel reconciling his feelings for Vincent. Though the text of the narrative doesn't make it explicit, etherane's supplementary materials along with the original story make it clear those feelings are romantic in nature.
• Uncanny Valley: Vincent is described as having an unsettling presence behind his charisma and charms, particularly due to his visibly fake smile.

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