Tear Jerker / Life Is Strange: True Colors

• The backstory for the game seems to set up how Alex has been brought up alone in the foster system before finally reuniting with her older brother and growing accustomed to the Colorado community he's a part of. And then the main premise of the game is about investigating his "accidental" death.
  • What's more tragic is how his death plays out. Alex, Ryan, and Gabe have all just saved Ethan from a ravine when a mining alarm goes off. A rock comes crashing down and knocks Gabe off the edge into the ravine, dragging Alex off with him as they were tied together while saving Ethan. Alex and Ryan try to save him but when Ryan sees a rockslide rapidly approaching, he decides to cut the line and pull Alex to safety.
  • It's doubly tragic for Ryan, considering that he was the one who had to make the tough call. If he didn't, Alex would've likely been killed as well.
• As pictured above, Alex tries to process accidentally hitting Gabe by unpacking. She then discovers a guitar that was meant to be a gift from him and plays a rendition of Radiohead's 'Creep'. The way her voice breaks and grows quiet as she repeats the final lyric, 'I don't belong here...', is nothing short of heartwrenching.
• During the Spring Festival, Alex can run into Duckie grieving for his dead wife Tabitha in the back room of the Black Lantern, next to the bear statue where they first met. However, she can possibly cheer him up with a dance to one of his favourite songs.
  • Depressingly enough, since he's tucked away in the back room it's hard to find him unless you look around. As a result, nearly 80% of players missed the encounter and left Duckie to grieve on his own.
• After Alex helps Eleanor retrace her steps in the flower shop, she'll express confusion about Jed ordering lilies for Gabe's wake (having forgotten about it due to her Alzheimer's). If you choose to have Alex tell her the truth, Eleanor will quickly go from stunned to heartbroken when she realizes she missed Gabe's wake. She'll then tearfully apologize before rushing to her office, where Alex can use her powers to see that Eleanor is overcome with guilt. The only positive is that telling Eleanor the truth means she'll be able to attend the lantern ceremony later on.
• While he's definitely a hotheaded jerk, it's not hard to feel bad for Mac Loudon after all is revealed. Turns out he did receive Gabe's call saying he, Alex, and Ryan were up in the mountains looking for Ethan at the time of the ill-fated blast. He attempted to have the blast called off, only for Typhon to ignore him and later coerce Mac into publicly denying the call. This results in the townspeople coming to believe Mac intentionally allowed Gabe to die out of petty jealousy, with Ryan outright accusing him in the middle of Gabe's wake. When Alex comes to Mac afterwards, he's wracked by guilt, fear, and devastation over being made out to be a murderer that he ends up having a panic attack.
  • Prior to this panic attack, Alex is able to tap into Mac's emotions as she walks through town. Seeing firsthand how scared and hopeless Mac feels is sad enough, but the real kicker comes when you see how he believes Riley wishes he had died instead of Gabe.
  • A blink-and-you'll-miss-it tearjerker: Mac can be seen at the lantern ceremony with a happy aura around him just like everyone else. This potentially implies that he and Gabe used to be friends (or were at least civil towards each other) prior to Mac's suspicions about him and Riley. And now that Gabe's dead, any chance of Mac and Gabe reconciling is gone.
• Alex's entire past leading up to her coming to Haven Springs, along with how much the events of the main game affect her:
  • To begin, her mother was hospitalized and later died due to an illness. It happened when Alex was merely a child, and it's shown in a repressed memory that she broke into tears by her mother's side. It's also implied that this is the first time she genuinely cried, as her mother explains that she would never cry even as an infant.
  • Her mother's death later leads to unrest between Gabe and her father, John. It's said that they would always break into a fight until Alex was able to calm them down and keep things relaxed. She had to do this when she was eleven. Eventually, John accidentally hits Alex when he tries to throw a punch at Gabe. His face afterward just screams nothing but sheer regret.
  • Gabe and Alex then go into foster care. While Gabe is able to get out and head to Haven Springs, Alex grows up in the system and is frequently passed over for having a troubled past and being an older kid. Her developing powers don't exactly help this situation. The players are given an insight into this life, with the dream sequence in Chapter 5 showing how frequently Alex faced rejection and isolation in foster care.
  • If one reads through Alex's texts, they may discover an encounter with a guy that ended with something particularly unsavoury. The fact it's almost blatantly implied she was coerced into sex is nothing short of horrifying. Fridge Horror comes into play when one realizes Alex's powers and how they handle particularly strong emotions may have caused her to be literally unable to say no.
    • That's not all that's in her texts. She's blocked any further texts from her counselor Dr. Lynn, who we only see as kind and caring, indicating she's trying to get away from anything related to her previous home. Her only other two friends were Mariela, who suddenly broke contact with her for unspecified reasons^*It's implied in the texts to be because Alex brought up there being something "weird" with herself, presumably her powers, and Chelsea, an orphan who Alex remains on good terms with but had to leave behind to go live with Gabe. And that's about the extent of her texting history, with the only real positivity coming from Gabe.
  • Finally, it seems everything is going well after she's invited to Haven by Gabe and given the promise of a new life. And then he's killed in a mining accident.
  • And after this, she pries enough to get the attention of Typhon themselves, who threatens both Steph and Ryan unless Alex signs an affidavit, which will effectively destroy all the hard work she's done trying to find out what happened to her brother. Not long after this, she's lured out to a mine and shot by Jed Lucan, her boss and one of the friendliest people in Haven Springs.
  • After barely being able to come back from that, Alex interrupts the council meeting to confront Jed and Diane. Depending on player choice, it's possible for everyone in the bar except Steph to side with Jed against Alex. This includes Ryan, one of the few people Alex was closest to (and potentially her romantic interest). Luckily, things are able to turn around once she uses her power.
  • Apart from Sean and Daniel from Life is Strange 2, Alex is arguably one of the most tortured protagonists in the entire franchise. Sean had to take responsibility for his little brother when he was sixteen. Alex had to keep her entire family under control when she was barely into primary school. Someone give her a hug!
  • When Alex is helping Ryan deal with his grief and he starts to feel joy, she remarks that she's never felt that emotion with her powers. It says a lot about how foster care must have been to have never experienced joy.
• While everyone in Haven Springs takes Gabe's death hard, Ryan's grief is shown most viscerally. After his fight with Mac during Gabe's wake, he timidly says he wasn't the one who killed Gabe. This hints at how much Ryan feels responsible for Gabe's death. Mac straight-up agreeing with what Ryan believes doesn't help. Alex later finds Ryan standing at the ravine, and (through her powers) can see and feel Ryan's self-loathing over failing to save his best friend. Even after Alex assures him he's not at fault, Ryan collapses into tears in Alex's arms.
  • During this exchange, Ryan even takes a step towards the ravine, seemingly getting ready to jump off the edge...
  • Things only get worse for Ryan after all is said and done. Not only does he learn that his own father has an indirect role in his best friend's death, but he also learns that all the stories of Jed being a hero who saved lives in the mine collapse were a cover for the truth: Jed left his fellow miners to die, and he was willing to conspire with a corrupt company and attempt to murder Alex to keep his secret. Depending on your choices, Ryan may refuse to believe it at first and disparage Alex, much to Steph's outrage. Once the truth comes out, he's shown to be guilty about it and desperately tries to reach Alex to make amends. If you choose to have Alex not forgive Ryan or leave Haven without having romanced him, Ryan can end the game having lost his best friend, his father, and his relationships with Alex and Steph.
  • If your choices result in Ryan believing Alex, he'll plead with his father to come clean so they can work it all out together, audibly struggling to hold back tears. Before Alex uses her powers to confront him, Jed will furiously accuse Ryan of being manipulated by Alex into turning against his father. Ouch.
• Charlotte's heartbreaking admission that she hates Ethan for the role he played in Gabe's death, however inadvertent it was. Made even worse because she hates herself for feeling this way, and nothing Alex does can help her deal with her cascading anger; the only thing that will let her process her emotions is time.
• Steph's furious reaction to Ryan if he sides with Jed against her and Alex can actually be heartbreaking on her part. It's clear from the first chapter alone that she sees him as a very trustworthy and close friend, which is increased by how much the two hang out with Alex and how (if Alex absorbs Charlotte's anger) Ryan rushes off to talk to Steph after an enraged and heartbroken Alex breaks her Foosball Champion bottle. Thus, her What the Hell, Hero? towards him after he turns his back on both her and Alex is nothing short of tragic. What's worse is that this is the last potential interaction Ryan and Steph share, with players being left to wonder if Ryan's brief betrayal has permanently destroyed their friendship.
  • Right before Steph starts cursing Ryan out, her expression is a mix of shock and sadness. That and her tone throughout her brief rant makes it clear that Steph is devastated that one of her closest friends in Haven Springs would turn against her and Alex — especially in the wake of Gabe's death.
• In Wavelengths, we see Steph deal with her own personal trauma regarding either the destruction of Arcadia Bay or the deaths of Chloe and Rachel. The former being the more devastating as it's revealed that Steph's mother and Drew died in the storm, which leads to a short but heartbreaking talk between her and Mikey. It's a far cry from the confident, geeky character that players grew used to.
  • While cleaning up a ripped garbage bag, Steph has a flashback to the tragedy she went through. If the player sacrificed Arcadia Bay, Steph will recount the last conversation she had with her mother before she died in the storm. If the player sacrificed Chloe, Steph will remember being told about Rachel's body being found in the junkyard—to which she responds by frantically wondering where Chloe is (unaware that she's dead as well).
  • During her last radio show of Pride Month, Steph gets a call from a father looking for advice after having reacted badly to his son coming out to him. While heartfelt on the surface, some of Steph's comments suggest that her own father wasn't as accepting of her being a lesbian.
  • By the time Halloween arrives, Steph is overworking herself and has (potentially) cut off a romantic relationship due to her own trauma. She's gotten to the point where she's ignoring Gabe's concerns and has been ghosting Mikey, which she can highlight in fury when they play D&D later in the sequence. She can also find numerous items around the record store that trigger her PTSD regarding the destruction of Arcadia Bay or Chloe and Rachel's deaths.
  • Her romantic relationships in general is pretty sad. Her ex before she moved to Haven Springs was upset about her leaving the band they were both in and blocked her from contacting her. Most of the people she finds on the dating app at first have wacky situations (such as encountering a bot or accidentally pairing with a straight woman), but eventually she gets more serious rejections (such as being ghosted after a match promises to contact her again after not being busy or being told that she's not a positive person). It has gotten to the point where she will even be willing to sleep with someone who was being rude to her out of desperation of not being alone, only to stop at the last minute. And when she receives a call from her radio show, it is less of her offering advice to a person and more of asking someone if he thinks she'll be alone for the rest of her life. It is a reminder that just because someone is gay doesn't mean that they won't go through sad moments in their dating life and they can be just as unlucky with love as any straight person.

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