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- Alternate Character Interpretation: In-universe, the Crossroads and Eden's Garden Heretics have very different opinions about what kind of man Hieronymus Bosch, the inventor of the Heretical Edge, was.
- Arc Fatigue: A relatively common criticism of The Reveal-heavy plot is that it moves slowly.
- Broken Base: A bit of a base breaking situation came with the revelation that Scott Utell is a pooka, which let him resurrect after Fossor and Ammon murdered him. A number of readers felt this was an Ass Pull. The seeming universality of this opinion led Cerulean to change it so Scott was human and thus remained dead, which led to a minor backlash when the people who were fine with it learned about the edit and made their displeasure clear, which convinced him to change it back.
- The ending of chapter 27-02 had a mixed reaction upon release. Most readers seem to be fine with it, and some declared it to be among their favorite chapters of the entire story. But a few felt that the end was a contrived Diabolus ex Machina.
- Darker and Edgier: Than the author's Worm fanfic, Atonement, which has a reputation for being Lighter and Softer than its source material (though it is not Light and Soft). That said, Heretical Edge is not as dark as Worm itself.
- It's roughly as dark, give or take, as Cerulean's other Worm fanfic Intrepid.
- Fan Nickname: Amaroks are Doomwolves, the no-sleep power Flick got from one is Doomwolf Never Sleeps, working together with a possessing Seosten is dual thread mode, the monsters from the Dimension of Awesome are Abyssals and the fusion of Grandfather's evil half and Zadkiel is Godfather.
- Genius Bonus: Many, but not all major older Heretics are reference to historical people. Some well reasonably well known (Bosch), some not so much (Gabriel Prossor).
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- 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 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.
- When meeting him for the first time, Flick describes Fossor as looking like a children's dentist. It's later revealed that he actually did impersonate a dentist and pull some of Flick's teeth when she was twelve, which involved sedating her.
- The constant insults aimed at the Seosten get remarkably less amusing when it's revealed that Tabbris was there for all of them too.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Tabbris's appearance renders the Seosten panicking about Flick's mysterious possession immunity and immunity to their magic hilarous - said immunity never even existed and they were getting played HARD by a nine-year-old.
- I Knew It!: Some details get picked up well ahead of time by fans. For instance, it was deduced that Manakel was possessing Risa Kokahu over a year before it was revealed in-story.
- Les Yay:
- Flick pays a lot of attention to Avalon's attractiveness. It's a big clue to her bisexuality.
- Flick and Shiori quickly develop chemistry when they spend an extended period of time together.
- Memetic Badass: Flick's pet rock Herbie, both in and out of universe.
- Sariel Moon can infiltrate anything and spanner any plan.
- Moral Event Horizon
- Reggie Owens first crossed it by being an abusive piece of shit who violently beat his young daughter on a regular basis for most of her early life. Then he topped himself when he became a vampire and dedicated his life to murdering her.
- Chronologically, 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.
- He also pushed the Meregan people to the brink of extinction solely to obtain their corpses to use in his armies.
- Gabriel Ruthers crossed it in 1964 when he ordered his subordinates to burn children alive to serve as a distraction while they kidnapped Joselyn Atherby's infant twins to force her to surrender so Crossroads could go back to indiscriminately slaughtering everything that isn't human. And since there was at least one human child in there with them, his Fantastic Racism isn't an excuse.
- Then he managed to top himself a few decades later when he started campaigning to end the rebellion by casting a blood plague on the rebels, which would have enslaved them and all of their future children forever (there is no known cure).
- The Hiding Man, a Stranger who abducted and apparently murdered a number of totally innocent children in Koren Fellows neighborhood when she was ten. And it was all solely for the sake of running a Batman Gambit on Crossroads.
- Kushiel crossed it by keeping numerous 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.
- Portmanteau Couple Name: Felon for the Felicity/Avalon ship. Doubles as an unintentional Meaningful Name because "felon" is a word that refers to convicted criminals, a nice reference to both girls' tendency to Screw The Rules And Do What's Right.
- "Sandstone" became one of the favorite couple names for the Sands/Herbie Cargo Ship that launched when Sands sarcastically said she would rather date Flick's pet rock than Zeke Leven.
- Shipping
- Ship-to-Ship Combat: Flick/Avalon vs Flick/Shiori. Pretty low key as far as Shipping Wars go (no Flame Wars), but the debate was definitely there before the Love Triangle was resolved.
- One True Threesome: The reaction of some readers to the above Love Triangle is "why not both?" In 20-05, Flick has a conference with Shiori and Avalon and they decide to try Flick dating both of them (although more polyamory than a threesome)
- Unpopular Popular Character: Out of universe, Avalon Sinclaire is generally one of the more popular characters, although she has her detractors. In-universe, she's widely disliked among the student body of Crossroads for being perceived as arrogant and spoiled, and for having been a student at Eden's Garden. Speaking of Eden's Garden, she has it even worse over there.
- The Woobie: 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, Joselyn Atherby, Lincoln Chambers, Deveron Adams, Wyatt Rendell, Koren Fellows (especially after Thanksgiving), Roxa Pittman, Tabbris, and Virginia Dare are all riding The Woobie train. If you want details, check out their character entries.
