YMMV / Quantity Over Quality

• Diagnosed by the Audience: Florida is often seen as creepy by other Freelancers and faculty on the ship. He shows clear signs of sociopathy such as lack of empathy, extreme risk-taking behavior, and need for stimulation in the form of bloody combat. He has been called a sociopath both in the story and in the comments; however, he himself has stated he never got an official diagnosis.
• Jerkass Woobie: South. No really. She acts like she always does: aggressive, rude, and unfriendly. She does however show a soft side for her brother as well as Donut though they still clash. Then after she and Donut are separated after merging minds, South becomes desperate to be “them” again. Why? Because she absolutely hates herself and wishes she was someone else. She actually got the chance only for it to be yanked away from her. Now she is borderline-suicidally trying to return to that merged state. You can’t help but feel sorry for South, especially if you’ve dealt with self-loathing or suicidal thoughts before.
• Moral Event Horizon: While they performed one crossing act together, the Director and Counselor technically cross it at different points.
  • The Counselor crosses it when it's revealed that he oversaw the implantation process that saw the Blood Gulch Crew tortured and murdered before their conversion into AI units.
  • The Director crosses it, either off-page by coming up with the aforementioned plan, or on-page when he reveals to Carolina that his ultimate goal is to take everyone from Allison's past and use their memories to make a more complete picture of Allison before murdering them all and then implanting the new Allison into a random woman's body, with no concern for what would happen to the host. It's noteworthy that this revelation is what finally turns Carolina against him for good.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The imprinting process used on the Reds and Blues is absolutely terrifying. They are led to what they believe to be an allied base, only to have their armor locked with no warning and have the imprinting process performed on them, one at a time. They were Forced to Watch (as much as they could with their heads locked) as their friends were clearly put through a torturous experience, finally capped off with a bullet to the brain. It’s told from the perspective of Grif, who can’t see it, meaning Nothing Is Scarier is in full effect.
  • The crash of the Mother of Invention is a horrific clusterfuck of chaos.
    • Sister instigates it by crashing her ship into the ship, killing a large amount of crew in the process and causing the ship to depressurize.
    • C.T. decides to reveal herself as a traitor by turning off FILSS, resulting in a fight with Washington and Alpha and Beta being released. Wash is then left with the stressful job of trying to turn FILSS back on before the ship crashes, which he’s barely able to do.
    • As soon as she’s free, Beta goes on a killing spree, killing the Insurrectionist Leader and locking York in a room with deadly gas. If Alpha hadn’t discouraged her, she would’ve killed everyone on the ship on the spot.
    • In the middle of it, Florida and Carolina have a brutal fight that results in Florida being rendered brain dead. Sarge is left on the floor with a body he can barely control.
    • Grif regains his memories after seeing his sister, unintentionally leaving North borderline catatonic and revealing the previously mentioned imprinting process. North is actually so damaged that he develops a stutter from the trauma..
    • Through it all, 479er has been handed the reins of a ship that she simply can’t control by herself, knowing she can’t stop it from crashing but just trying to mitigate the damage.
    • As the ship enters the atmosphere of a nearby planet and officially loses all chances of staying in the air, Wash, 479er, York, the Dakotas, and Sister’s group simply try their best to survive, knowing full well they are likely about to die.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Carolina is left stranded on an alien planet with nothing but an AI she doesn't like and her father's corpse. Despite their still rocky friendship, Caboose takes control of her body and buries the Director so that she won't have to, with her tearfully thanking him in return.
  • After Sister reunites with Grif, he manages to unlock his memories. He appears, takes his helmet off to reveal his face, says his standard "what the fuck are you doing here?!", and then they go to hug while tears are streaming down her face... only they can't, because he's not actually physical anymore, so they're left reaching for each other for a moment without any way to actually touch each other. North then offers to hug her as a proxy (fighting through a newly developed stutter in the process), which she does while crying into his shoulder.
  • Thanks to a flashback from Carolina's perspective, we get to see that before Allison's death, the Director was a genuinely caring man who loved his daughter dearly, only to have his wife die and his immediate reaction to not be "comfort my daughter" but instead "go straight to the lab". As monstrous as he became later on, it's a stark reminder that before Freelancer, Dr. Church was just a man who loved his wife a bit too much.