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Main Characters (Unmarked Spoilers)
William Clarke
A student who has trouble expressing emotions and has to manually move his facial muscles. He otherwise lives an ordinary life. He previously had some sort of relationship with Tanya Kennedy, and becomes the prime suspect of her murder.
- Ambiguous Disorder: Played with. Will cannot express emotions naturally and has to force his facial muscles to move to whatever is appropriate at the moment. He also expresses inappropriate emotions at the wrong times. Officer Hutchins can even ask Will if he had ever been diagnosed as neurodivergent. The inappropriate emotion issue is actually Lila's issue rather than Will's, as flashbacks show him as much more expressive, but even then he makes references to his face moving on its own.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: As William, Lila sets up a meeting with Tanya in order to murder her. When William finds out, he warns Tanya not to see him.
- Decoy Protagonist: You do spend the game controlling his body, but his consciousness has been separated from it. The one inhabiting his body is actually Lila. There are only a few endings where you truly control William himself.
- Friendless Background: Will mentions this during interviews. Not helped by Lila's interference.
- Frozen Face: Of sorts. Will seems to have a condition whereby he has trouble expressing emotions. He has to make a conscious effort to move every facial muscle, hence needing to be controlled by the player. And he was this way before being possessed by Lila.
- Love at First Sight: Will's reaction when he sees Tanya at Matt's party.
- Nightmare Face: Some of his faces range from unnatural and unsettling to nightmarish.
- Slasher Smile: You can give Will one when controlling his expressions.
Lila
A mysterious woman who resembles Tanya Kennedy.
- Big Bad: She is the killer of Tanya Kennedy and the one possessing William Clarke.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Depending on the route, she can be really good at pretending to be a normal, good-hearted friend like Will, but it's just a cover for a murderous sociopath. In other routes, though, she doesn't even bother to hide her lack of empathy.
- Body Surf: How she gets around the world. Will is simply her latest victim.
- Cassandra Truth: In two endings, she decides to come clean and tell the cops the truth about her being a demonic entity possessing a human body and using it to murder Tanya. Officer Hutchins just brushes it off as Will (the human Lila is possessing) trying to cope with the guilt of being a killer by inventing a persona to blame everything on, and notes that he isn't the first killer who's done that.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Lila for William, in a sense. Even the mere mention of Tanya, who Will is in a physical relationship with, makes her mad.
- Demonic Possession: What Lila does to Will and others.
- Faux Affably Evil: Even when speaking to Detective Yu about her evil actions and having no need to hide her true nature, she still tries to be polite.
- Frame-Up: Depending on how you play out the interrogation scene with the police, Lila as William can accuse Michael Graves for the murder based on the scratches and bruises on William's body as well as other factors. The cops fall for it.
- Grand Theft Me: For most of the game the player is actually controlling Lila, who has taken control of Will's body and placed his soul inside the school basement.
- Karma Houdini: By the true ending, she is still free to continue terrorizing people, and can never truly be stopped.
- Kick the Dog: Depending on your decisions, she can say cruel things to people, like taunting Mike about how his girlfriend cheated on him with Will.
- The Killer in Me: Played with in that it turns out you've been playing as the killer of Tanya Kennedy... but Will didn't do it- Lila did and is possessing Will's body.
- Light Is Not Good: One of Lila's true forms show her as an ethereal, floating woman with angelic music playing and light emanating from her. The other depicts her as spinning wheel with rays that shine from her. She's also the Big Bad who murdered Tanya and possessed Will, and is indicated to be Lilith.
- Pet the Dog: Subverted twice. In the coffee shop ending, she expresses sympathy for Detective Yu and his futile efforts to find the truth about her, but has no problem driving him to madness with the truth afterward and takes glee in doing so. She's also nice to the waitress tending to her, a former member of the Lawrence Fraternity, but in another ending openly refers to Lawrence's followers as "worms" and has a low opinion of humans in general.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Strongly implied to be the reason why Lila murders Tanya- because Lila wants Will to herself.
- Mysterious Waif: The Driving Question is the mystery of who this mysterious woman in an Ethereal White Dress really is, and how Will is connected to her.
- Sadist: Lila enjoys hurting others, and one of the few times when she smiles without having to consciously do so is when someone asks about Tanya, the girl whose death she orchestrated.
- The Trickster: Lila is a cruel example, having trapped Will's mother, Father Lawrence, and Will in another dimension without time.
- Tulpa: Lila is said to be one of sorts, and she has taken control of Will's body- however, in the Temperance ending, she clarified that "the worms liked to call me that" and "thought they had control", after saying that she has existed for centuries. She is actually implied to be Lilith.
- The Vamp: She used her looks to seduce Will to make him more of a fitting host for her.
- Villain Protagonist: It turns out that you are actually controlling Lila, who in turn is controlling Will's body. Lila did in fact murder Tanya and will go on to commit at least one more murder.
- Yandere: Lila towards Will, murdering Tanya, with whom he was developing a genuine relationship and going on to be hostile towards and even murder one of his friends.
Will's Friends
Tanya Kennedy
A friend of William Clarke and girlfriend of Michael Graves. Her murder is what sets off the plot.
- The Ace: Tanya is an academically gifted student who is also envied for her good looks.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Her murder is one of the plot's big mysteries and what kicks off everything.
Martha Jennings
A friend of William Clarke.
- The Klutz: Although she's a smart student, she's clumsy enough that she needs to carry an extra house key in her backpack.
Michael Graves
An uneasy acquaintance of William Clarke.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's somewhat of a bully who will antagonize Will on the rooftop no matter what choice you make, but he does it out of a desire to find his girlfriend, who he loves very much.
Law Enforcement
Officer Ted Hutchins and Detective Fisher
A pair of officers who question William Clarke about Tanya's murder in the school route.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: Officer Hutchins and Detective Fischer in the interrogation scene. Hutchins is calm and understanding, listening to William and expressing sympathy should William talk about his bad childhood. Fischer is abrasive, screaming swears at William and insisting on his guilt.
- Hero Antagonist: They are trying to find Tanya's killer and bring them to justice. Unfortunately, it happens that they arrest William Clarke and believe him to be the killer, and you're playing as Lila, the actual killer possessing Will.
Detective Yu
A mysterious detective who appears in one of the secret endings. He is dedicated to discovering the truth behind Lila.
- Ambiguously Human: He references the game itself and there are conflicting statements by other characters as whether or not he actually exists.
- Apologetic Attacker: Detective Yu, in learning that one way to get rid of Lila is to destroy her hosts, attempts to shoot Lila inhabiting Will's body, despite his being innocent. It doesn't work and when the player enters his office again, he apologizes for killing the innocent William.
- Audience Surrogate: He, like the player, is determined to solve the mystery of who Lila is. Lila makes multiple puns about it and will even insult the player for it.
- Determinator: Detective Yu is determined to push through to find out who Lila is. Lila even feeds on his curiosity.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Detective Yu breaks down after learning the final piece of the puzzle from Lila- mainly, that she is the embodiment of the mystery of who she is, and can never truly be defeated.
- My God, What Have I Done?: If you enter Yu's office after having him shoot William to try and stop Lila, he's collapsed on the floor apologizing to William for what he did, with Lila commenting on how much sorrow he's feeling.
Lawrence Fraternity (unmarked spoilers)
Father Lawrence
The founder of the Lawrence Fraternity.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Father Lawrence's reaction for having summoned Lila into the world when you find him.
- Sinister Minister: As the head of the Lawrence Fraternity, he worked with the entity Lila to conduct all sorts of strange and dangerous experiments on tulpas and such.
The Emperor and Empress
A pair of demon-like entities with some connection to Lila.
- Eldritch Abomination: A pair of powerful demonic beings who birthed Lila, a strange woman on a different level of reality than normal humans. Very little is known about the parents, as the mother only briefly appears in two routes and the father is The Ghost.
- The Ghost: The Emperor never appears in any form.
- Greater-Scope Villain: They're Lila's parents and thus more powerful than her, but they mostly stay out of the plot.
- Offing the Offspring: The Empress tries to kill Lila in the basement of the school route for some unexplained reason.
