healing (isn't) linear
by CinderScoria is a Escape the Night Fan Fic where the events of the show have actually taken place and the surviors of each season recover through their shared trauma together.
Official Summary: They're all kind of broken, in a jagged edges sort of way, but that doesn't mean they can't fit with each other. The road to recovery is long and arduous - but if they travel it together, they can fill the cracks with gold.
Tropes:
- Ascended Extra: Myling. Also Gabriel Zamora, by Word of God standards - the author didn't intend for him to play as big a part as he ended up playing.
- Also, from the original TV series itself, Daniel Preda and Jetpack Girl count
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Nikita and Matt and their "I hate you/I know" back and forth banter
- Beach Episode: Chapter sixteen, "Five Senses," where we learn through a series of unfortunate events that Eva has fish powers (aka, can breathe underwater)
- Berserk Button: Maybe don't lie to Eva and most definitely do not mess with Matt in front of Nikita...
- Big Damn Heroes: The girls rescuing the boys in chapter twenty-seven, "Emotion Mind"
- Break Them by Talking: Iridessa is very good at this.
- Broken Bird: All of them, but Eva in particular.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Matt's entire character arc after he discovers the Society Against Evil was evil the whole time and his friends may be at the center of a prophecy that'll doom the world to the return of the Cursed God.
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Captain Obvious Reveal: Despite the author's best efforts, quite a few people guessed that Matt would become the Leywalker of life by the end of the book.
- Distressed Dude: Matt gets captured by the Society towards the end of the book and the others have to go rescue him
- Doomed Protagonist: Played with in that the Leywalkers gaining their magic accelerates the return of the Cursed God, or so the prophecy goes...
- Foreshadowing: Several, especially regarding the survivors' magical elements. If you look closely, each of them have their element scattered throughout their point of view chapters:
- It's always raining in Eva's chapter.
- Tyler's house is always cold.
- Oli feels most comfortable around nature.
- Nikita is associated a lot with fire.
- Great Offscreen War: The entire Society Against Evil backstory, as in canon.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: every survivor pair (despite some of them Not Actually Being Straight), but especially Nikita and Matt.
- Home Base: The Living Room, especially after the Society begins attacking the survivors.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each chapter is titled after a DBT skill that's featured in the story.
- Light Is Not Good: The SAE. You'd think with a name like the Society Against Evil, they wouldn't be actually evil, and yet...
- The Mentor: Myling. Matt, too, though YMMV on that one considering...
- Mood Whiplash: The cliffhanger at the end of chapter 20 when Stephanie interrupts a beautiful character development moment to deliver some very bad news...
- Mooks: The Society members who are so mookish they don't even get names.
- Took a Level in Badass: The survivors discover they have magic and utilize it appropriately when Matt is kidnapped by the Society Against Evil.
