Character sheet for My Deepest Secret.
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Emma Wilson
Emma Wilson
The main character. She seems to be an ordinary college student in a loving relationship with Elios, however, she has a mysterious past, and bad things seem to happen to both her and the people who hurt her.
- Abusive Parents: Flashbacks reveal Emma was abused by her father
- All-Loving Hero: She’s a total sweetheart, even towards fellow students who don’t deserve it. Although she does have her limits.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Implied to have happened in her past, where it shows other kids whispering about her bruises.
- The Atoner: Emma became this at the last part of Season 3. While spending the day at a beach with Yohan, Emma left him the next day and turned herself in so he wouldn't suffer with her.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: She fell in love with the real Elios because he helped her one time when she got bullied during their childhood and stood up for her despite her reputation.
- Broken Ace: She’s noted to be very pretty and good at school, but also a Stepford Smiler with a dark and troubled past.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Downplayed. The reason she doesn’t want other people to meet Elios is that she’s afraid that because he’s so perfect, they’ll fall for him.
- Dark and Troubled Past: She was recently confirmed to be an abuse survivor, and has even moved and changed her name.
- Distracted by the Sexy: She just about flatlines while seeing Elios shirtless for the first time.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Downplayed; one reason she moved and changed her name was that she didn't want people to pity her knowing about her abusive father. She doesn't show much else about that.
- Doom Magnet: She tends to attract the worst people: from a senior, an attempted rapist, to a perverted teacher. Also, bad things always happen to people who hurt her in any way, courtesy of Elios.
- Driven to Suicide: Emma threatens to slit her own throat at the hospital following her attacks on Sophie and Yohan when the latter reveals he knew her identity as the hoodie-wearing attacker. At the last chapter of the story, there's a strong implication that this becomes Emma's eventual fate when the last scene is the closed door of her hospital room and a loud "thud" echoes, although the thud sound effect could just be the door closing as it was used a few panels up to indicate the nurse leaving the room.
- Dude Magnet: She attracts a lot of guys. Unfortunately for her, except Jamie, most of them have problems.
- Entitled to Have You: Because Emma spent about a decade or so watching the real Elios from a distance, she felt that she deserved to have him and not his girlfriend Farah.
- Extreme Doormat: On occasion, like when she let her friend Natalie borrow her paper... only for her to share it with the class to copy. Emma is upset but decides that since it’s been two hours, it’s too late for her to do anything.
- Despite Sophie trying to ruin her reputation and even almost kill her, Emma has already forgiven her...though it's subverted when it's discovered that she's the one who stabbed Sophie to fake like it was a suicide, not Elios.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She’s blond and is one of the sweetest characters in the story.
- I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Even though she asked him out, Emma still has trouble grasping whether Elios really loves her.
- Identical Stranger: Downplayed. Emma bears a strong resemblance to Camie, a girl Sophie knew in high school.
- Important Haircut: Emma cuts her hair short to rebel against her father's wishes.
- She does it again when she runs away with Yohan to disguise herself. It also unintentionally makes her look closer to Elios' appearance.
- Innocently Insensitive: Emma says a lot of the same things that Camie said to Sophie in high school to cheer her up and attempt to help her with her confidence. While she meant it because she's a very nice girl, Sophie takes it very poorly.
- Insecure Love Interest: She's this to Elios. Even after dating for a few months, she still has issues grasping the fact that he agreed to go out with her. It worsens after Elios explains his values system to her. She begins to fear that if she weren't his girlfriend, she'd have no value to him whatsoever.
- Kick the Dog: Emma is on the giving and receiving end of this trope as she's not only horribly abused and bullied growing up but she harasses and almost kills Farah because she happens to be Elois's girlfriend.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: She likes cats, and even defends one after it pees on her shoe. And when she returns after changing shoes, she asks Elios where it went and hopes it finds a home someday...unaware that Elios killed it. But then it turns out that she was the one who killed the cat.
- Loving a Shadow: Despite having been a Stalker with a Crush toward Elios, she never really got to fully know the true Elios and thinks of him as only a constantly happy and kind person. Farah calls her out on this.
- Mysterious Past: In flashbacks, she's shown to have been abused as a child
- It's confirmed that her father abused her.
- Due to her repressed memories, her past is even mysterious to herself.
- Nice Girl: She's very kind, a good friend, and a loving girlfriend.
- Not Good with Rejection: She really, really isn't...
- Obliviously Beautiful: She doesn't seem to take much notice of her looks, but several other characters have commented on her beauty.
- Only Known By Their Nick Name: Emma is short for Emmeline.
- Plucky Girl: Despite all the pain she goes through in the present and the past, Emma just keeps going somehow.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Although she usually looks good, during her first date with Elios, she wears a nice dress and curls her hair.
- Single-Target Sexuality: Emma only loves Elios. In particular, she only loves the Elios that her mind created as a coping mechanism for her traumatic childhood.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Many of her problems stem from her looks. Her resemblance to other characters who have hurt people in the past causes her a lot of problems. The fact that she's also attractive draws in a lot of creeps.
- Stalker with a Crush: She was this to the real Elios.
- Stepford Smiler: She typically hides her worries and stress behind a smile, which has led to her breaking down in front of Elios and later developing a fever after Yohan runs a background check on her and finds out what happened in her past.
- Strong Family Resemblance: She looks just like her mother Linda, and because of this resemblance, Emma's dad tries to groom her into a better version of Linda.
- Yandere: The true yandere of the story isn't Elios but rather Emma.
Elios
Elios
Emma's boyfriend. On the surface, he seems like the perfect one, always kind and attentive to her. However, he is also a yandere, one who will stop at nothing to protect her. Of course, there's more to him than meets the eye...
- Affably Evil: Sweet, nurturing, affectionate, not only willing but glad to take his girlfriend out on old-fashioned dates and bring her soup when she's sick... Really, if it weren't for the "murderous psycho" part, he would be the perfect boyfriend.
- Ambiguous Disorder: With his behavior, he’s all but stated to be a sociopath. The only thing making it ambiguous is it wasn’t been explicitly said.
- Ax-Crazy: A very downplayed example. While he rarely goes out of control or visibly insane, it does tell you something when his first reaction to a cat peeing on his girlfriend’s shoe is to kill it. Also shown when he attacks Brian. Judging by his level of preparedness, he was already planning to attack him before he tried to rape Emma, which means the attack was likely because of that but also jealousy.
- This is getting to be a little less downplayed as the comic goes on. By the time he shows up on Emma's field trip, he's starting to look visibly unhinged.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Murdering a defenseless kitten is our first insight into his true personality.
- Beneath the Mask: He appears to be the ideal boyfriend... which he would be if he weren’t also a yandere. Or a hallucination.
- Berserk Button: Anyone hurting Emma in any way. Heck, even mentioning her has him on alert. Yohan takes advantage of this during their confrontation by using her name, making Elios react slightly.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: His response to a cat peeing on Emma’s shoes? Kill it. His response to Brian attempting to rape her? Beat the tar out of him as a warning, but keep him alive.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Flashbacks reveal that he met Emma as a child when they were both young. However, Emma has forgotten him due to her repressed childhood memories.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Surprisingly downplayed. While he is concerned that Emma may be seeing Brian behind his back, he’s not overly suspicious, and the only reason he attacks Brian is that he tried to rape Emma. While he does have shades of this in regards to her growing friendship with Yohan, this could also be caused by Yohan being an amateur detective on his trail.
- Crazy-Prepared: Yohan on his trail? Simply track him down, scare and beat the tar out of him as a warning.
- Cute and Psycho: There is no denying Elios is a looker, and his interactions with Emma are usually sweet.. but he’s also a yandere with a growing body count.
- Dead All Along: Emma apparently killed the real Elios a year ago, and the one she’s been with in the present was a split personality she developed afterwards.
- Death Glare: He has quite the frightening one.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Deconstructed. While talking to Emma, he does say he loves her and his mom...while explaining that they have value to him. This frightens Emma, making her think that if she weren’t his girlfriend, he might not see her as having any value. It also serves as a reminder to the readers that he is a sociopath, no matter how sweet he appears.
- Green-Eyed Monster: When he sees Emma and Yohan talking, he tries to make her stop talking to him, partially due to jealousy but also because he knows Yohan is on his trail. Later in the series, he begins to try to cause rifts between Emma and her friends, though it turns out he had more than one reason in regards to Sophie.
- Icy Blue Eyes: He usually has innocent ones, but whenever his yandere side is triggered…
- Heroes Love Dogs: Word of God states his favorite animals are dogs; Inverted since he's a villain.
- Lack of Empathy: During a conversation with Emma, he tries to explain his system of values, pointing out a stray dog has no value to him and thus doesn’t matter. This scares Emma, making her think that if she weren’t his girlfriend, he wouldn’t care about her at all.
- Love Makes You Crazy/ Love Makes You Evil: It’s unknown what he was like before meeting Emma, but Elios’ love for her drives him to kill a cat, attack her senior, and (maybe) kill her professor. It’s not likely he’s going to stop anytime soon.
- Mr. Fanservice: Downplayed but had a shirtless scene to show his muscular physique
- Only One Name: He’s the only one of the three main characters not to have his last name revealed.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: While Elios is undoubtedly cold and merciless to the people he kills or hurts, most of them weren't good people. To begin with, he breaks Brian's arm after he assaults Emma, and he stabs Sophie after treating Emma badly.
- Satellite Character: We only see him interacting with Emma and no one else with him either conveniently away or being hidden by Emma for some reason. And that's because Elios is part of Emma's Split Personality rather than an actual person.
- Stalker with a Crush: He regularly stalks his girlfriend outside her apartment building.
- Episode 61 brings a much darker example of this when he shows up at Emma's school trip uninvited, which means he's been stalking her for an unknown period during season 2.
- Episodes 68 and 69 culminate with The Reveal that the Elios we’ve been following has technically been watching her for a year after the real him died, because he’s actually just her Split Personality.
- The Sociopath: Implied and later confirmed by the author.
- Tranquil Fury: Even when pissed to the point of seriously hurting someone, the most Elios does is give one serious death glare...even while beating them up.
- White Hair, Black Heart: He may love Emma, but that doesn't excuse his actions or what he does to others because of that love.
- Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: He gives a terrifying example of this when he reveals to Emma that he's got Sophie's blood on him. Better yet, he's staring right at the viewer when it happens. Brrr.
- Yandere: If killing a cat for peeing on his girlfriend's shoe, beating up a senior who tried to rape her, probably killing the professor that tried to hit on her, and later try to cause rifts between her and her friends to get her to depend only on him doesn't qualify him like this, what can? The Reveal that he's actually just her split personality heavily implies that he represents a side of her that wants to lash back at whatever hurts her.
Yohan Lee
Yohan Lee
An amateur detective, who attends Emma's college. After a professor seemingly commits suicide, he decides to investigate but quickly gets drawn into her life.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Just as he’s going to try to help Emma escape Brian, he sees her kick him in the crotch to escape. Yohan bursts into laughter.
- Amateur Sleuth: He's an aspiring detective who works with his detective uncle often. He also gained some fame around the school for solving some small mysteries, like finding a thief who had stolen a club's money. The reason is that an important person to him has been arrested for a crime he didn't do since he was a child. The boy tries to convince the police that the man didn't commit a crime, but they didn't believe him, even his uncle (though he regretted it). It led Yohan to train for law enforcement, so no innocent would be arrested for someone else's crime.
- Animal Motifs: During his more comedic chibi moments, Yohan tends to gain cat ears and is overall associated with cats. Ironic, considering what happened to the cat in the first episode...
- Awesomeness by Analysis: He is a self-proclaimed detective, and his first appearance certainly justifies it, as he deduces a viable suspect for a club theft in only a few sentences.
- Big Bad Slippage: The recent episodes have this going on for him, as he tries to run away with Emma, who's currently a wanted criminal, as well as hotwiring a car and attempting to blame Emma's kidnapping on Matthew (her co-worker at the cafe) in the process.
- Cute and Psycho: He isn’t, but he tries to pull this off when he attempts to distract Elios while stalling for his uncle to arrive.
- Did Not Get the Girl: He doesn't end up with Emma, and indeed appears to be single at the end, not that he is bothered by it.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Upon graduating college and becoming a lawyer, he finally exonerates Oscar of the crimes he was accused of committing. He then quits his job and, after some motivation from Hana and meetings with Sophie and Nura, decides to become a cartoonist, which was his childhood dream. Additionally, he even struck up a friendship with the real Elios.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: He got one over his left eye when 'Elios' attacked him at the abandoned warehouse.
- Mistaken for Gay: Emma misinterprets his interest in her boyfriend as this. When he tries to play along with it, he unintentionally scares her...which leads to him embarrassingly declaring the opposite in public.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After he brings up Emma's dark and troubled past, driving the poor girl to tears in the process, he's genuinely remorseful and realizes how badly he screwed up.
- No Sense of Direction: He manages to get lost very easily. It's usually played for laughs but ends up played for drama when he notices he's being followed and means to go to a crowded area... he ends up at an abandoned house instead. This leads to him pulling a Xanatos speed chess.
- No Social Skills: Usually averted, as he has plenty of friends. However, in regards to Emma, he tends to make some pretty massive social errors and mistakes, like her thinking he's interested in her boyfriend in that way and even telling her point-blank he ran a background check on her, which understandably freaks her out.
- Ship Tease: He and Hana.
- Stalker without a Crush: What some of his actions in regards to his investigation on Emma result as, particularly his asking his uncle to run a background check on her. His uncle even lampshades it, asking him if he's stalking someone when he makes that request.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: He ends up having to make an impromptu plan when he notices that he's being followed by somebody, whom the readers know is Elios. He, at first, means to go into a crowded area, but, due to his bad sense of direction, ends up at a creepy abandoned house. Realizing that this means the person following him will likely assume that he led him there, Yohan devises a quick plan to try to distract Elios while his uncle arrives.
Nura
Nura
Emma's closest friend at college.
- Nice Girl: She is quite possibly Emma's only true friend. She's got a temper, but it often flares up when people mistreat Emma, and she's nothing but supportive. At one point, she even chases down Yohan to demand the truth behind the video of him and Emma that circulated the school.
- Opposites Attract: Let's be honest, who expected the brash and energetic Nura to be engaged to the nice and quiet Jamie after the Time Skip?
- Plucky Girl: Nura is cheerful, optimistic, and full of energy with a lot of love for Emma.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Nura, one of the sources of comic relief in the story, isn't present at all during the class trip (outside of flashbacks) when things really start going wrong.
Sophie
Sophie
A new friend of Emma. She's very quiet and has low self-confidence.
- Asshole Victim: The end of season one suggests that she will be Elios' next victim. While at first implied that Elios' motives are simply jealousy, the reveals about her including her being the one to circulate the video of Emma and Yohan to pushing Emma into a river make her this.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Is she ever. Despite her innocuous appearance, she secretly hates Emma for being pretty.
- Evil Redhead: Well, "evil" is a stretch but she is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing with reddish hair who almost killed Emma and tried to ruin her reputation for no reason except because Emma is pretty.
- False Friend: Sophie was pretending to be Emma's friend while actually trying to ruin her reputation as well as almost killing her all because she's violently jealous of Emma's good looks to the point of hatred.
- Female Misogynist: In Sophie's mind, pretty girls are the source of her problems rather than the boys who reject her.
- Green-Eyed Monster: She is violently jealous of girls with good looks who attract male attention. Emma is one of these—nevermind the fact that much of the attention she gets is unwanted!
- Irony: Despite hating pretty girls and assuming they're all shallow, Sophie is the one who always judges based on appearances (see: hating Emma).
- Karma Houdini: Downplayed. While she receives major injuries (to the point that she falls comatose for a period of time), she recovers from everything. Meaning, effectively, she got away with all of it.
- Never My Fault: Sophie blames pretty girls for everything bad that happened to her as well as says that Emma not knowing how to swim after she pushed her into the river is Emma's fault because she's "an adult who should already learn how to swim by now."
- Never Suicide: When Yohan and Mika find her, it's with a suicide note. Yohan knows it's not her handwriting, however…
- Stalker with a Crush: How she appeared to her crush back in high school, unfortunately.
- Walking Spoiler: It's hard to talk about her without spoiling the revelations about her backstory.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: She gets this twice, from Camie as a high schooler and from Emma in university. In an unusual take on this trope, outside events foil the first one. By the time Emma says it, it turns Sophie against her.
Hanamika
Mika
A quiet classmate of Emma. She may or may not have bad intentions.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: What she really is. She's not a bad person, just introverted.
- Brutal Honesty: Most of her dialogue consists of her speaking what's on her mind or problems she thinks a person might have or simply telling them they're getting on her nerves. Yohan is on the receiving end of this most of the time.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: Downplayed. Most of her standoffishness is revealed to be due to her introversion rather than any true unfriendliness, and she's a perfectly decent person beneath it all.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Mika and Yohan. They're best friends, and neither displays any signs of attraction towards the other at all.
- Only Sane Man: She seems to be the only one around with any common sense and doesn't think twice to give verbal and physical smackdowns to people she thinks are deserving of it like Sophie. Even her best friend, Yohan, isn't spared.
- Red Herring: She's the prime suspect for the person who's out to get Emma. Sophie apparently takes a photograph of Mika putting an exam sheet into Emma's bag to frame her for cheating, Mika seems like she's angry at Emma for some reason, and she was apparently nearby when someone pushes Emma into the river. But the culprit isn't Mika; Mika only picked up that exam sheet because she was curious about why it resembled threats in her locker. Plus, her seeming coldness is because she's introverted, and not only did Mika not push Emma into the river, Mika's the one who told everyone that Emma was missing, so she indirectly contributed to Yohan saving Emma's life.
- Shipper on Deck: She makes it no secret to Yohan that she thinks he and Emma would be a good couple.
Emma's Dad
Emma's Dad (George Brenton)
A mysterious figure barely shown prior to the beginning of season 3.- Abusive Parents: He beat and gaslit Emma constantly, all because he wanted to mold her into a submissive housewife due to her strong resemblance to her mother. Basically he abuses her in every way but sexual...and it's more than implied that if he hadn't died, it would have gone that route.
- The Alcoholic: Why he's abusive to his daughter. At least that's what he wanted her to think. Ever since Emma's mother disappeared, the abuse was calculated to try and mold Emma into a submissive housewife. Alcohol was used as an excuse to use physical violence as a re-enforcer.
- Asshole Victim: He definitely deserved what was coming to him for what he did to Emma.
- Disappeared Dad: By the time of the story, he's completely absent from Emma's life. Which is good given how he treated her.
- Freudian Excuse: Linda cheated on him and then refused to stay with him, even though he was willing to forgive her. In his grief, he started drinking.
- Hidden Eyes: His eyes are always scribbled over in black, even in happier scenes. It's very disturbing.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: He's not Emma's biological father which gives him an excuse to groom her into becoming a submissive housewife.
- Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Well, abuse in this case, but he wasn't always so cruel to Emma...
- Wife Husbandry: He wanted to groom Emma into a "better" (i.e. submissive) version of her mother.
- Would Hurt a Child: Specifically, Emma.
Linda
Linda Brenton
Emma's mother. A mysterious figure barely talked about prior to the beginning of season 3.- Abusive Parents: Linda literally has no love for her daughter and left her to her abusive father.
- Gold Digger: She married Emma's dad only for money.
- Jerkass: In a story full of bad people, Linda is one of the worst.
- Missing Mom: Emma hasn't seen her since she was young.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The first time she is seen outside of flashbacks is in HZ Hospital, where she is in a critical condition. Apparently, some time after she divorced George and left him and Emma, she remarried another man but when she got herself in an accident, she didn't have any relatives to contact with and her new husband left her, primarily because he didn't want to look after a cripple.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Emma hardly talks about her, and prior to season 3 it was implied she'd been driven away by her husband's abuse. The opening to Season 3 proves that this is so not the case. Rather, Linda's choice to abandon her family sets off everything.
- Strong Family Resemblance: She looks a lot like an older and nastier version of Emma.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Her decision to abandon her family is what triggers the entire plot of the web comic into motion.
Season 3 character (Spoiler warning)
Elios Dunsworth
The real Elios, who debuts in series 3.- Accidental Murder: A victim of this. or not.
- All-Loving Hero: Is probably this. His statement to Emma as he's dying that he can't hate her despite knowing what she's like since he knows a bit about her horrific past certainly suggests it. Having survived her stabbing him, he never reports her to the police to let her move on.
- Berserk Button: Don't be mean to Farah, or insult her looks. He likes her just fine, thank you.
- Dead All Along: We never see the real Elios. Turns out he's been dead for a while. Subverted as of the very last chapter.
- Nice Guy: Really, really this.
- Posthumous Character: We never meet him, except through flashback. At least, until the last chapter, subverting this trope.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: One interpretation of him, by inaction. Emma's belief that she'd killed him triggers her psychotic break and the development of her murderous split personality which drives so much of the story. Since he'd survived, he might hypothetically have been able to help her.
- Walking Spoiler: Discussing him spoils the titular Deepest Secret.
Farah (Spoiler Warning)
Farah
Elios' real girlfriend.- Eye Scream: After Emma drops a cactus on her face, she has a bandage on her face for the rest of her appearances. Until the last episode, we never really find out if she lost her eye or if it was just hurt.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: She has a small one near her left eye, courtesy of Emma's cactus. It's barely noticeable, though.
- I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: Downplayed. She's insecure about her appearance, though she seems to trust Elios.
- Look Both Ways: After Elios is stabbed she runs off to get help and call an ambulance. In her panicked state she forgets to check for cars before crossing the road and runs out in front of a car. It comes very close to hitting her.
- Nice Girl: Even when meeting with someone who probably means to kill her, Farah never stops being kind.
- Walking Spoiler: Her existence and relationship with Elios spoil the story's biggest twist.
