History Fanfic / TheSunWillComeUpAndTheSeasonsWillChange

** [[spoiler: Irene is also unmentioned, leaving it unclear if she had died, left town trying to track down Dana again, or if she’s still in Pittsburg. The Summers appear to have no relationship or interest in one with her, considering what a {{Jerkass}} she is.]]

* CoolTeacher: Mr. Bryant, Mary's fourth-grade teacher, is a kind, friendly, supportive man who defends her when Dana gives her a hard time about her stimming and is quick to punish Greg for bullying her. He even calls out Greg's apathy in regards to Mary's disappearance, and although he also has to punish Mary's friend Caitlin for fighting with him, he's at the very least fair. He also volunteers with the search parties to help find Mary. He later helps Greg learn how his bad behavior comes off to others, causing Greg to reach a HeelRealization.

* LaserGuidedKarma: Chapter 21 reveals that Xander [[spoiler: got arrested for attempting to buy beer underage and assaulting a security guard.]]

* CassandraTruth: {{Defied|Trope}}; [[spoiler: : Mary knows nobody would believe her about the Infinity Train, so she doesn’t even bother trying to tell anybody about it. Instead, she claims that after running away, she survived out in the woods, met Nora and lived in the hut the latter had created for a while, [[MetaphoricallyTrue and that Nora had tried to kill her after finding out that she was autistic]]. She also told the police what she knew about Nora’s neo-Nazi ideals and her ties with Xander, but didn’t tell them about her SpitefulSuicide as she thought her body would have remained stuck in the Infinity Train’s realm. The story does come under scrutiny between the lack of physical evidence that Mary was at the hut and nobody being able to figure out Nora’s cause of death after her body was returned to Earth. However, as there was no evidence ''disproving'' Mary’s testimony and since Nora’s memories gave Mary details about the hut that she would only have known if she had actually seen it, the police decide to just close the cases on Mary and Nora’s disappearances.]]

* CassandraTruth: {{Defied|Trope}}; [[spoiler: Mary knows nobody would believe her about the Infinity Train, so she tells everybody that after running away, she was living out in the woods, met Nora and lived in the hut the latter had created, [[MetaphoricallyTrue and that Nora had tried to kill her after finding out that she was autistic]]. She also told the police what she knew about Nora’s neo-Nazi ideals and her ties with Xander, but didn’t tell them about her SpitefulSuicide as she thought her body would have remained stuck in the Infinity Train’s realm. The story does come under scrutiny between the lack of physical evidence that Mary was at the hut and nobody being able to figure out Nora’s cause of death after her body was returned to Earth. However, as there was no evidence otherwise and since Nora’s memories gave Mary details of the hut that she would known if she had actually seen it, the police accepted the explanation.]]

** No matter what she does or what effect it has on those around her, Dana '''NEVER''' believes that she is the one in the wrong. She basically blames Mary for all the problems in her own life even when it couldn't have possibly been her fault or it's pretty blatantly her own. All her efforts to “cure” Mary aren’t helping? She insists it’s because everyone else is enabling her "bad habits". Causing a scene in a bookstore when she tries to stop Mary from stimming and actually hurting her, much to the horror of Todd, Reagan, and all of the other witnesses? She blames Mary and everybody else without hesitation and even rewrites things in her blog to make herself look like the one in the right. Mary runs away because of the abuse Dana heaped on her? She believes Mary must’ve actually been kidnapped by a predator and blames Todd and Reagan for making her “vulnerable”. Everybody else rightfully calls her out on her actions? She believes they’re “disrespecting” her and not appreciating all of her “hard work”. The cops interrogating her about her blog [[spoiler: and showing disgust at Dana wanting to forcibly sterilize Mary]]? Dana complains that they had no right to invade her privacy like that even though she shared her thoughts on a public blog and didn't even bother to hide anybody’s names.

* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler:Subverted in the final chapter, where Nora's corpse is found after her SpitefulSuicide on the Infinity Train, but her family will never know what really happened to her.]]

* DistantFinale: [[spoiler: The second half of the final chapter takes place six year after the events of the story]].

Can be found on [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/30800123/chapters/76029440 Archive of Our Own]] and [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14073612/1/The-Sun-Will-Come-Up-And-The-Seasons-Will-Change FanFiction.net]].

** PerfectionIsImpossible, especially from children.

* DearJohnLetter: In the penultimate chapter [[spoiler: Dana decides to leave one for Todd, explaining that she’s leaving because she knows he, Reagan, and Mary will never forgive her for her actions and she’s moving somewhere secret where Irene or anybody from her old life will never find her, as well as seek the therapy she so desperately needs and discover who she truly is]].

* DrJerk: Dr. Goldman, whom Dana had consulted, is the one who "confirmed" her fears of what Mary being autistic meant for her, insisting that she had to be controlled lest her "primal desires" take control of Dana's entire life. Chapter 9 makes it even worse when it's revealed he has recommended Mary be put on a sedative after a cursory examination and once hit and screamed at Mary when she tried to ask him for some water. According to Todd in Chapter 13, ''every single review'' of his practice has one-star ratings, demonstrating how harmful he is.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: In Chapter 19, [[spoiler: Mary, Blanca, and Vic abandon Nora in the Haunted House Car after realizing how dangerous she truly is. Unfortunately they only get to the next car before a pissed-off Nora catches up with them]].

* DrugsAreBad: Nora drinks, smokes cigarettes, and snorts cocaine ([[spoiler: Chapter 21 reveals that she threatened a talking castle to produce even more drugs for her when she ran out of her current drug supply)]]. Her drug use is used as another symptom of her downward spiral, and she spends Chapter 22 [[spoiler: hallucinating Mary as her brother Julius.]]

---> '''Mary''': “That stuff’s called alcohol. It’s a drink that messes with your brain and turns you angry and mean if you drink too much of it."

* DeathOfAChild: [[spoiler: Nora lets herself be crushed under the train rather than return home, and it's this that indirectly leads to Mary's number dropping to zero.]] Notably, this is the only death in the entire story.

* DaddysGirl: Mary and her father Todd share a strong father-daughter bond, and he makes it clear he accepts Mary for who she is. Same goes for Reagan.

* {{Doublethink}}: Thanks to Dr. Goldman's influence, Dana simultaneously infantilizes Mary, like trying to force her to choose a book intended for children much younger than her, and believes that Mary's autism means that she's a born manipulator always trying to get her way. One of the ABA doctors in the flashback Mary's tape shows even sums it up by asking another "How can you possibly claim a four-year-old with absolutely no concept of manipulation is manipulating you?”.
* DrugsAreBad: Nora drinks, smokes cigarettes, and at one point snorts cocaine [[({{Hammerspace}} all of which she was inexplicably able to carry in her backpack for a long time with no effect on either herself or the drugs themselves).]] Her drug use is used as another symptom of her downward spiral, though despite being depicted as an AddledAddict, she shows no sign of actual addiction apart from [[spoiler: suddenly hallucinating Mary as her brother Julius.]]

* DrugsAreBad: Nora drinks, smokes cigarettes, and at one point snorts cocaine [[({{Hammerspace}} all of which she was inexplicably able to carry in her backpack for a long time with no effect on either herself or the drugs themselves).]] Her drug use is used as another symptom of her downward spiral, though despite being depicted as an AddledAddict, she shows no sign of actual addiction apart from [spoiler: suddenly hallucinating Mary as her brother Julius.]]

* OutlivingOnesOffspring: [[spoiler: Because of Nora’s SpitefulSuicide in the penultimate chapter, Brooke and Harley end up losing their daughter without having a body to bury or even knowing the full details about what exactly happened, which is one of the reasons why Mary cries about Nora’s death]].

* RageBreakingPoint: In Chapter 11, Todd is digging through the kitchen cupboards for a snack when he suddenly finds Dana’s “Cure Autism Now” mug. As he stares at it, he reflects on all the abuse Dana forced Mary through in the name of trying to “cure” her autism and how unnecessary it all was, making him angrier and angrier. Todd then throws the mug against the wall (destroying it in the process) and vows to finally confront Dana on everything she’s done to Mary the next time he sees her in person.

* AbusiveParents: While Todd is [[GoodParents a very good father]] to Mary, Dana is a complete and total nightmare, emotionally and even physically abusing Mary whenever she displays any signs of her autism and badgering her to act more “normal”. It extends even further than that, with her trying to “fix” Mary by sending her to various programs meant to fix or cure her and her claiming that "[[NeverMyFault Mary ruins everything]]" on her blog.

* BrutalHonesty: Vic tends to do this a lot. For example, he tells Mary that she doesn't know for sure that Todd and Reagan know about Dana's blog unless she asks them about it and that she's jumping the gun with her assuming that her father and her sister also hate her.

* FieryRedhead: Downplayed with Edith and Lianna. The former only lets her temper get the better of her when Dana makes one snide comment too many about how she raised Lianna, in which she reacts by slapping Dana across the face and calling her out for how she treated Mary.

* ForWantOfANail: The reason why Todd found out about the ABA “therapy” Dana forced Mary to endure for three years was a combination of Dana leaving the ABA business card with the building’s address, a five-year-old Mary forgetting her lunchbox at home, and Todd driving over to drop it off and witnessing three doctors pinning Mary down like a criminal.

* HeelRealization: Through having a talk with his teacher, Greg comes to realize that his mocking of Mary’s possible fate was extremely hurtful and promises his teacher to be better in the future and apologize to Mary once she’s found.

* DirtyCoward: [[spoiler: In Chapter 22, Mary and Vic find Nora robbing Dr. Goldman, who had recently ended up on the Train, at gunpoint. When Mary and Vic save him by temporarily trapping the passenger pod onto Nora (and Mary holding back her anger and spite in order to save Blanca once she recognizes Dr. Goldman), he doesn’t stay to help fight Nora despite Mary clearly being younger than the violent teenager, instead choosing to flee to a safer car]].

* WhatYouAreInTheDark: While Dana already wouldn't accept Mary being autistic, her blog shows how deep her revulsion of Mary goes [[spoiler: to the point where she wants to get Mary forcibly sterilized]]. Both Todd and Reagan are hit with a full dose of horror and disgust once they see what Dana really thinks of Mary. Edith and Mr. Bryant also take the blog’s existence as evidence that Dana is a much worse mother than either of them had thought.

* GreaterNeedThanMine: [[spoiler: After Mary’s exit forms, she gives Mimi to Blanca as a parting gift so the stuffed rabbit can comfort other kid passengers that come through the Sweets car, just like how Mimi gave her comfort throughout the years]].
* {{Hallucinations}}: [[spoiler: In Chapter 22 Nora, who had spent a few hours drinking and doing cocaine, hallucinates Mary as her younger brother Julius. Mary plays along with it during their confrontation in the house-sized pumpkin]].

** When the police is interrogating Dana about her abuse of Mary, the detective leading Mary’s missing persons case asks Dana if it’s possible Mary saw the blog. He deliberately leaves out that Mary contacting Reagan about it is the reason why the police know about it in the first place, leaving Dana to believe Mary still doesn’t know about it.

* GreaterNeedThanMine: [[spoiler: After Mary’s exit forms, she gives Mimi to Blanca as a parting gift so the stuffed rabbit can comfort other kid passengers that come through the Sweets car just like how Mimi gave her comfort throughout the years]].

* SpitefulSuicide: [[spoiler: Nora, in a drug-infused haze, chooses to not let Mary (who she’s hallucinating as Julius) and Blanca save her when she falls over the edge of the train, instead pepper-spraying Blanca so she can fall under the train’s wheels and be destroyed]].

** Your children deserve all of the care and support in the world, especially if they have special needs that need to be reasonably accommodated.

* CallBack: In chapter 2, when Mary watches the video in her passenger transportation pod, One-One says this line, "Specifically you're more likely to fall off the train and die alone." In chapter 22, [[spoiler:that's exactly what happens to Nora, with Mary even remembering it as she mourns her death.]]