History Characters / TellMeWhy

* DrowningMySorrows: [[spoiler:If you take a close look at her autopsy report, you will notice one little but significant detail: traces of alcoohol were found in Mary-Ann's blood. Considering that she knew social services were closing in, she hit the bottle the night she grabbed her rifle, and therefore her judgment may have been altered by alcoohol. Her ruined make-up also shows that she cried that night, cementing her depressed state at the time]].

** [[spoiler: Chapter 3 reveals definitively that he was a figment of their imagination. Or, in the case of the night Mary-Ann died, the twins mistaking someone else hiding in the woods for him. The implication given in the game is that The Mad Hunter was representative of Mary-Ann's struggle with mental ilness.]]

* AmbiguousDisorder: The twins often mention that she had 'moods' in which she would become even more irritable and prone to outbursts than usual. There's a pill bottle on her nightstand and in one of the memories she mentions having taken one to Tessa, though it doesn't seem like it did much good.

* HeteronormativeCrusader: Implied. In the past she tried to convince Mary-Ann to send Tyler to conversion therapy. Going through her e-mails reveals she's still in contact with the group who runs the camp, although she says that she has retracted her support for conversion therapy upon learning more about the process. She also told Michael to not be openly gay in her store, as she views it as immoral.

** Tyler's ending reveals in a letter that [[spoiler:she blames herself for Maryann's death because she was the one who called [=CPS=] on Maryann out of anger upon learning of the affair and the twins' parentage. She never hated Maryann or the twins, but feels that Maryann's death, Tyler's incarceration, and the separation of the twins are all her fault.]]

* ArcWords: "We look out for eachother."

* NiceHat: Alyson dons a red toque throughout the story.

* BreakTheCutie: Both were only eleven years old the day [[AbusiveParent their mother]] tried to kill Tyler with a shotgun and [[spoiler:Alyson was forced to stab her to protect her brother]]. They were then separated for ''ten years''.

* [[CheerfulChild Cheerful Children]]: When they were kids, Alyson and Tyler were energetic and playful kids, who were inseparable.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: They're both still struggling to cope with their less than stellar upbringing under [[AbusiveParent Mary-Ann]] and her death by [[spoiler: Alyson's]] hands.

* ImportantHaircut: A plot point. As a child, Tyler asked Alyson to cut his hair short, as long hair contributed to him feeling stuck in the wrong body and Mary-Ann always refused to cut them shorter. When he wanted to show the result to [[AbusiveParent his mother]], it ended with her chasing him with a shotgun and [[spoiler:Alyson having no other choice but to stab her to protect him]], resulting to her death and the twins' eventual ten-year separation.

* AbusiveParent: She was extremely neglectful towards the twins and her steady refusal to accept help from anyone often resulted in her and her children being put in a bad spot. She was also incredibly jealous of the twins' close relationship, feeling like they were excluding her and did things like stealing a young Tyler's diary. She also tried to kill him with a shotgun the night of her death, presumably because he'd let Alyson cut his hair after she refused to do it. [[spoiler: Though the ending of Chapter 1 implies that might not exactly have been what happened after all.]] [[spoiler: Chapter 3 also raises the [[AmbiguousSituation possibility]], that she wasn't going to kill him either. Rather [[DrivenToSuicide herself]], then for a [[PoorCommunicationKills misunderstanding]] to occur when Tyler walked in.]]

* [[NiceGuy Nice Girl]]: Always ready to share her food with others. ''The Pelican Helps Her Friends'' even has her put her migration on hold to save the Princess and the Goblins from freezing to death.

* UnreliableNarrator: A frequent theme with their power to recall memories. Each twin's thoughts and feelings on the events and the people appearing in them slightly changes how the memory plays out. And it's often left ambiguous which of them remembers it right or at least more accurate or if both of them misremember due to personal bias. The closest the game gives to telling who is 'right' is that the connection between the twins seems to weaken whenever you don't chiose Tyler's version of events.

* UnreliableNarrator: A frequent theme with their power to recall memories. Each twin's thoughts and feelings on the events and the people appearing in them slightly changes how the memory plays out. And it's often left ambiguous which of them remembers it right or at least more accurate or if both of them misremember due to personal bias.

* MamaBear: Part of a PetTheDog moment: [[spoiler:when she discussed Tyler being transgender to Tessa, and she proposed a [[CureYourGays conversion therapy camp]], Mary-Ann angrily yelled at Tessa and was ready to tear her a new one for even thining of the idea]]. Upon learning this, Tyler is

* BreakTheCutie: Both were only eleven years old the day [[AbusiveParent their mother]] tried to kill Tyler with a shotgun and [[spoiler:Alyson was forced to stab her to protect her brother]]. They were then separated for ''ten years".

** Tyler's ending reveals in a letter that [[spoiler:she blames herself for Maryann's death because she was the one who called [=CPS=] on Maryann out of anger upon learning of the affair and the twins' parentage. She never hated Maryann or the twins, but feels that Maryann's death, Tyler's incarceration, and the separation of the twins.]]

* HeteronormativeCrusader: Implied. In the past she tried to convince Mary-Ann to send Tyler to conversion therapy. Going through her e-mails reveals she's still in contact with the group who runs the camp. She also told Michael to not be openly gay in her store, as she views it as immoral.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: [[spoiler: If Alyson confesses to him that it was her who killed Mary-Ann in Chapter 3, he's horrified, since that means he separated her from Tyler for no reason.]]

* NotSoDifferent: For all that they might hate her, both Alyson and Tyler inherited character traits from Mary-Ann. Tyler shares her environmentalist views, while Alyson seemingly has her artistic talent. [[spoiler: On a much darker level, Tyler also seems to have mood swings similar to hers, while Alyson starts to suffer from hallucinations and paranoia, which Mary-Ann was implied to have, in Chapter 3.]]

* HeroicSacrifice: A non-lethal one: [[spoiler:after their mother's death by Alyson's hands, Tyler took the blame for it so Alyson wouldn't live the repercussions]].