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* AdultFear: Yulia’s parents [[IDidWhatIHadToDo did what they had to do]] to keep her and Zhenya safe from USSR StateSec, which motivates most of [[spoiler:both of their actions throughout both books, most notably when her father risks derailing a CIA operation to bring Yulia to the US]]. In real life, the USSR was one of many dictatorships to exploit IHaveAFamily to keep the adults in line.
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* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Yulia’s parents did what they had to do to keep her and Zhenya safe from USSR StateSec, which motivates most of [[spoiler:both of their actions throughout both books, most notably when her father risks derailing a CIA operation to bring Yulia to the US]]. In real life, the USSR was one of many dictatorships to exploit IHaveAFamily to keep the adults in line.
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Not So Different has been renamed, and it needs to be dewicked/moved
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* NotSoDifferent: The similarities and differences between the CIA and KGB are [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] throughout ''Skandal''. Ultimately, [[spoiler:while Yulia is never happy with the CIA, she sees the absence of fear in Washington compared to Moscow and decides that makes it worth helping]].
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* NotSoDifferent: NotSoDifferentRemark: The similarities and differences between the CIA and KGB are [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] throughout ''Skandal''. Ultimately, [[spoiler:while Yulia is never happy with the CIA, she sees the absence of fear in Washington compared to Moscow and decides that makes it worth helping]].
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* RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude: Crosses over into ChildSoldiers. The USSR [[NotSoDifferent and the United States]] both start training psychics and even using them for fieldwork as soon as their powers start to show, usually well before they turn 18.
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* RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude: Crosses over into ChildSoldiers. The USSR [[NotSoDifferent [[MirroringFactions and the United States]] both start training psychics and even using them for fieldwork as soon as their powers start to show, usually well before they turn 18.
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* TheSixties: ''Skandal'' is set in Washington, DC in 1964, and features [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson LBJ]], Jackie Kennedy-style suits, beehive hairdos, hippies, the CivilRightsMovement, and lots of talk about a possible [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar war with Vietnam]].
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* TheSixties: ''Skandal'' is set in Washington, DC in 1964, and features [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson LBJ]], Jackie Kennedy-style suits, beehive hairdos, hippies, the CivilRightsMovement, UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement, and lots of talk about a possible [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar war with Vietnam]].
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* AmbiguousDisorder: It’s fairly clear from the narrative that Zhenya has what we would probably now recognize as [[{{UsefulNotes/Autism}} autism]], but due to the setting, no one has or uses that term for it. Mercifully, the little we see isn’t the [[HollywoodAutism Hollywood]] kind.
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* AmbiguousDisorder: It’s fairly clear from the narrative that Zhenya has what we would probably now recognize as some form of [[{{UsefulNotes/Autism}} autism]], but due to the setting, no one has or uses that term for it. Mercifully, the little we see isn’t the [[HollywoodAutism Hollywood]] kind.
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** The ending of ''Sekret'' reveals that [[spoiler:that American scrubber who was too powerful to even look at, who kept showing up wherever their team deployed and ruining everything, is actually Yulia’s father Andrei]]. There’s some doubt over whether this trope applies during ''Skandal'' [[spoiler:as he’s acting like a JerkAss and abusing his powers left and right, and at one point Yulia even wonders whether he’s the mole. It eventually turns out he really is a good guy who’s in a self-destructive spiral after [[IDidWhatIHadToDo damaging his own brain to escape]], and starts to get it together toward the end of the book]].
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** The ending of ''Sekret'' reveals that [[spoiler:that American scrubber who was too powerful to even look at, who kept showing up wherever their team deployed and ruining everything, is actually Yulia’s father Andrei]]. There’s some doubt over whether this trope applies during ''Skandal'' [[spoiler:as he’s acting like a JerkAss and abusing his powers left and right, and at one point Yulia even wonders whether he’s the mole. It eventually turns out he really is a good guy who’s in a self-destructive spiral after [[IDidWhatIHadToDo damaging his own brain to escape]], and he starts to get it together toward the end of the book]].
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* BilingualBonus: Lots throughout for Russian-speaking readers, though it’s generally limited to concepts that translate clumsily into English (e.g. ''molodtsa'' [[note]]which in English would be “A woman who’s just done an excellent job of something,” and even that doesn’t carry over the extra connotation that the speaker knows the woman in question fairly well[[/note]]).
to:
* BilingualBonus: Lots throughout for Russian-speaking readers, though it’s generally limited to concepts that translate clumsily into English (e.g. ''molodtsa'' [[note]]which in English could be translated by having the character say "Great job!", but that would be “A woman who’s just done an excellent job of something,” and even miss the connotations that doesn’t carry over it's actually a noun referring to the extra connotation that the speaker knows the woman in question fairly well[[/note]]).person who did well, and usually also a term of endearment[[/note]]).
* DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent: [[spoiler:Andrei Chernin]] is a Soviet defector working for the CIA, who has a [[spoiler:numbers station set up in his house]] which indicates they might be a mole. [[spoiler:He’s on the American side and is using the numbers station as bait.]]
* FaintingSeer / PowerStrainBlackout: Yulia is the most frequent victim of this due to her PowerIncontinence, but most of the cast have to deal with psychic blackouts or at least [[IncrediblyLamePun brownouts]] at one point or another.
* TheMole: [[spoiler:In ''Skandal'', Frank is a MoleInCharge. It’s villainous TeethClenchedTeamwork as he’s aggressively anti-Soviet, but agrees with their goal of a US war with Vietnam.]]
* NumbersStations: [[spoiler:Andrei has one set up in his study. Yulia finds it and suspects him of being the mole, but he’s actually a [[DoubleReverseQuadrupleAgent triple agent]] (really on the American side) and is using it as bait.]]
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* PsychicStatic: Keeping a song going around in your head keeps anyone from reading your actual thoughts. It’s the first thing Yulia learns when she’s recruited. By the sequel, [[spoiler:thanks to Andrei’s advice, everyone in the CIA from the director down to the janitors is using one]]. Ironically, it’s also a window into the user’s personality; since it has to be on all the time, they have to pick something they won’t get tired of, and what that is tends to say a lot about their moods and interests. It can even be the point of failure while technically doing its job: the mole in ''Skandal'' gets [[SpotTheThread caught]] because they used [[spoiler:the song from Andrei’s bait number station]] as their musical shield.
to:
* PsychicStatic: Keeping a song going around in your head keeps anyone from reading your actual thoughts. It’s the first thing Yulia learns when she’s recruited. By the sequel, [[spoiler:thanks to Andrei’s advice, everyone in the CIA from the director down to the janitors is using one]]. Ironically, it’s also a window into the user’s personality; since it has to be on all the time, they have to pick something they won’t get tired of, and what that is tends to say a lot about their moods and interests. It can even be the point of failure while technically doing its job: the mole in ''Skandal'' gets [[SpotTheThread caught]] caught because they used [[spoiler:the song from Andrei’s bait number numbers station]] as their musical shield.
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* SeeingThroughAnothersEyes: Yulia can do this with the remote viewers Sergei and Masha in ''Sekret'', and learns to do it with Marylou in ''Skandal''. There’s one particular funny scene of her trying to move her body like usual while watching from Marylou’s vantage point and stumbling and crashing into things.
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* SpySchool: Most of the action in ''Sekret'' takes place inside a KGB-run psychic espionage training facility. Then in ''Skandal'' we get to see the CIA version.
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* TarotMotifs: Cindy’s future-foretelling powers revolve around tarot, which sometimes has trippy results as the figures on the cards can crop up in her vision in everyday settings.
* TouchTelepathy: Yulia’s unique ability. It also works on inanimate objects.
* VillainOverride: A fairly regular occurrence throughout the books. General Rostov and the serum-created scrubbers in ''Skandal'' don’t hesitate to make random innocent passersby attack the protagonists.
* TouchTelepathy: Yulia’s unique ability. It also works on inanimate objects.
* VillainOverride: A fairly regular occurrence throughout the books. General Rostov and the serum-created scrubbers in ''Skandal'' don’t hesitate to make random innocent passersby attack the protagonists.
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* AdultFear: Yulia’s parents [[IDidWhatIHadToDo did what they had to do]] to keep her and Zhenya safe from USSR StateSec, which motivates most of [[spoiler:both of their actions throughout both books, most notably when her father risks derailing a CIA operation to bring Yulia to the US]]. In real life, the USSR was one of many dictatorships to exploit IHaveAFamily this way.
to:
* AdultFear: Yulia’s parents [[IDidWhatIHadToDo did what they had to do]] to keep her and Zhenya safe from USSR StateSec, which motivates most of [[spoiler:both of their actions throughout both books, most notably when her father risks derailing a CIA operation to bring Yulia to the US]]. In real life, the USSR was one of many dictatorships to exploit IHaveAFamily this way.to keep the adults in line.
* AmbiguousDisorder: It’s fairly clear from the narrative that Zhenya has what we would probably now recognize as [[{{UsefulNotes/Autism}} autism]], but due to the setting, no one has or uses that term for it. Mercifully, the little we see isn’t the [[HollywoodAutism Hollywood]] kind.
* AmbiguousDisorder: It’s fairly clear from the narrative that Zhenya has what we would probably now recognize as [[{{UsefulNotes/Autism}} autism]], but due to the setting, no one has or uses that term for it. Mercifully, the little we see isn’t the [[HollywoodAutism Hollywood]] kind.
* BeenThereShapedHistory: After all the protagonists go through, witnessing [[spoiler:an entire manned rocket launch which fails and gets [[{{Unperson}} unpersoned]] out of history]] and [[spoiler:seeing both Khrushchev and LBJ attacked by psychics at different points]], the one thing that sticks is the in-universe reason for the relocation of the Soviet Embassy in DC.
* TheCharmer / CharmPerson: Donna in ''Skandal'' has this as her ability. Not everyone likes her automatically, but even then she tends to get what she wants out of them if they’re not prepared.
** This isn't Valentin's ability, but he also uses it this way once or twice.
** This isn't Valentin's ability, but he also uses it this way once or twice.
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** Valentin has it worse, though. After he struggles with the memory for two books, we finally learn that [[spoiler:his mother, who never learned to control her psychic powers and was sure he wouldn’t be able to control his, tried to [[OffingTheOffspring drown them both]] to “free” them. He barely survived; [[DrivenToSuicide she didn’t]]]].
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** Valentin has it worse, though. After he struggles with the memory alone for two books, we finally learn that [[spoiler:his mother, who never learned to control her psychic powers and was sure he wouldn’t be able to control his, tried to [[OffingTheOffspring drown them both]] to “free” them. He barely survived; [[DrivenToSuicide she didn’t]]]].
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* GameBreaker: “Scrubbers” are considered this in-universe for their ability to not just read minds, unlike most psychics, but [[MindRape rearrange]] [[{{Brainwashed}} them]]. Both books are full of [[NightmareFuel nightmare-inducing]] descriptions of what it feels like to be attacked by one, and what they’re capable of making people do.
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* GameBreaker: “Scrubbers” Scrubbers are considered this in-universe for their ability to not just read minds, unlike most psychics, but [[MindRape rearrange]] [[{{Brainwashed}} them]]. Both books are full of [[NightmareFuel nightmare-inducing]] descriptions of what it feels like to be attacked by one, and what they’re capable of making people do.
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* NotSoDifferent: The similarities and differences between the CIA and KGB are [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] throughout ''Skandal''. Ultimately, [[spoiler:while Yulia is never happy with the CIA, she sees the “absence of fear” in Washington compared to Moscow and decides that makes it worth helping]].
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* GovernmentDrugEnforcement: In ''Skandal'', the CIA is happy to involve actual psychics in its (real-life) experiments with LSD and other psychoactives. Marylou in particular spends the vast majority of the book high. Somewhat hilariously, it’s eventually revealed that psychics are ''less'' powerful while on LSD.
* MemoryGambit: [[spoiler:Andrei inflicts this on Yulia in hopes of keeping her and the rest of the family safe. It works for a few years, but because he erased ''all'' her memories related to her powers, she doesn’t know how or when ''not'' to use them and eventually gets recruited anyway.]]
* MindRape: All the scrubbers are capable of this, sometimes on purpose and sometimes [[PowerIncontinence by accident]] or when their powers interact badly with someone else’s. See PowerIncontinence.
* MundaneUtility: Done darkly (by the trope’s standards) with an extremely powerful scrubber using his abilities for things like reducing his restaurant bill. It’s described the same way as when scrubbers modify people’s minds for plot-related reasons and comes across as almost equally creepy.
* NotSoDifferent: The similarities and differences between the CIA and KGB are [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] throughout ''Skandal''. Ultimately, [[spoiler:while Yulia is never happy with the CIA, she sees the“absence absence of fear” fear in Washington compared to Moscow and decides that makes it worth helping]].
* MemoryGambit: [[spoiler:Andrei inflicts this on Yulia in hopes of keeping her and the rest of the family safe. It works for a few years, but because he erased ''all'' her memories related to her powers, she doesn’t know how or when ''not'' to use them and eventually gets recruited anyway.]]
* MindRape: All the scrubbers are capable of this, sometimes on purpose and sometimes [[PowerIncontinence by accident]] or when their powers interact badly with someone else’s. See PowerIncontinence.
* MundaneUtility: Done darkly (by the trope’s standards) with an extremely powerful scrubber using his abilities for things like reducing his restaurant bill. It’s described the same way as when scrubbers modify people’s minds for plot-related reasons and comes across as almost equally creepy.
* NotSoDifferent: The similarities and differences between the CIA and KGB are [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] throughout ''Skandal''. Ultimately, [[spoiler:while Yulia is never happy with the CIA, she sees the
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* PsychicNosebleed: Unusually for a medium that also thoroughly shows the action inside the characters' heads.
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* PowerGlows: Not entirely literally--he seems to look normal to {{Muggles}}--but the American scrubber in ''Sekret'' has this effect on the team, Yulia especially. They don’t know what he looks like because they can’t look directly at him; she repeatedly compares it to looking directly at the sun.
* PowerIncontinence: Yulia finds it very difficult to ''not'' absorb history from the things and people she touches, which can be very painful. Early in ''Sekret'', she violently recoils from a cot that used to belong to a psychic who lost control. [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse]] when she starts having to work with objects that scrubbers have used; she describes it as feeling like her brain is being washed with steel wool.
* PsychicAssistedSuicide: [[BigBad General Rostov]]’s signature way of dealing with enemies.
* PsychicNosebleed:Unusually Happens regularly, unusually for a medium that also thoroughly shows the action inside the characters' heads.heads.
* PsychicStatic: Keeping a song going around in your head keeps anyone from reading your actual thoughts. It’s the first thing Yulia learns when she’s recruited. By the sequel, [[spoiler:thanks to Andrei’s advice, everyone in the CIA from the director down to the janitors is using one]]. Ironically, it’s also a window into the user’s personality; since it has to be on all the time, they have to pick something they won’t get tired of, and what that is tends to say a lot about their moods and interests. It can even be the point of failure while technically doing its job: the mole in ''Skandal'' gets [[SpotTheThread caught]] because they used [[spoiler:the song from Andrei’s bait number station]] as their musical shield.
* PsychoSerum: Much of ''Skandal'' revolves around a drug that turns {{Muggles}} into incredibly powerful psychics... for a few days, before [[SuperPowerMeltdown the power overloads]] and they die horribly.
* PowerIncontinence: Yulia finds it very difficult to ''not'' absorb history from the things and people she touches, which can be very painful. Early in ''Sekret'', she violently recoils from a cot that used to belong to a psychic who lost control. [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse]] when she starts having to work with objects that scrubbers have used; she describes it as feeling like her brain is being washed with steel wool.
* PsychicAssistedSuicide: [[BigBad General Rostov]]’s signature way of dealing with enemies.
* PsychicNosebleed:
* PsychicStatic: Keeping a song going around in your head keeps anyone from reading your actual thoughts. It’s the first thing Yulia learns when she’s recruited. By the sequel, [[spoiler:thanks to Andrei’s advice, everyone in the CIA from the director down to the janitors is using one]]. Ironically, it’s also a window into the user’s personality; since it has to be on all the time, they have to pick something they won’t get tired of, and what that is tends to say a lot about their moods and interests. It can even be the point of failure while technically doing its job: the mole in ''Skandal'' gets [[SpotTheThread caught]] because they used [[spoiler:the song from Andrei’s bait number station]] as their musical shield.
* PsychoSerum: Much of ''Skandal'' revolves around a drug that turns {{Muggles}} into incredibly powerful psychics... for a few days, before [[SuperPowerMeltdown the power overloads]] and they die horribly.
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* ShownTheirWork: The level of detail that went into researching the Washington and Moscow areas during the 60's (complete with [[spoiler:plot-related moving of the Soviet embassy to its present-day site]]) is evident throughout.
* StateSec: Omnipresent (naturally). Yulia's unwilling recruitment to work for them kicks off the plot.
* WeirdHistoricalWar: The Cold War [[AC:with psychics]]!
* StateSec: Omnipresent (naturally). Yulia's unwilling recruitment to work for them kicks off the plot.
* WeirdHistoricalWar: The Cold War [[AC:with psychics]]!
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* WeirdHistoricalWar: The Cold War
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!! This series provides examples of:
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!! This series provides examples of:of:
* AdultFear: Yulia’s parents [[IDidWhatIHadToDo did what they had to do]] to keep her and Zhenya safe from USSR StateSec, which motivates most of [[spoiler:both of their actions throughout both books, most notably when her father risks derailing a CIA operation to bring Yulia to the US]]. In real life, the USSR was one of many dictatorships to exploit IHaveAFamily this way.
* BadPowersGoodPeople: NiceGuy Valentin is a scrubber, capable of making people do whatever he wants. Unlike the ones working for the villains, the worst he ever actually does with it is a CharmPerson glamour when he needs to get into a building. [[spoiler:Still, it’s a relief for him at the end of ''Skandal'' when he [[BroughtDownToNormal loses his powers]].]]
** The ending of ''Sekret'' reveals that [[spoiler:that American scrubber who was too powerful to even look at, who kept showing up wherever their team deployed and ruining everything, is actually Yulia’s father Andrei]]. There’s some doubt over whether this trope applies during ''Skandal'' [[spoiler:as he’s acting like a JerkAss and abusing his powers left and right, and at one point Yulia even wonders whether he’s the mole. It eventually turns out he really is a good guy who’s in a self-destructive spiral after [[IDidWhatIHadToDo damaging his own brain to escape]], and starts to get it together toward the end of the book]].
* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: Throughout the series, there are examples of people trying to resist scrubbers' control over them, scrubbers trying to control each other, multiple scrubbers fighting for control over the same person, etc., leading to lots of this. Sometimes shown from the outside; people move jerkily or look like they're fighting against invisible enemies. At one point there's a CarChase between two scrubbers where both cars are constantly fishtailing as their drivers struggle to stay in control of their own minds.
* BilingualBonus: Lots throughout for Russian-speaking readers, though it’s generally limited to concepts that translate clumsily into English (e.g. ''molodtsa'' [[note]]which in English would be “A woman who’s just done an excellent job of something,” and even that doesn’t carry over the extra connotation that the speaker knows the woman in question fairly well[[/note]]).
* ConvenientlyCoherentThoughts: Or rather [[SpotTheThread suspiciously coherent thoughts]]. A mole is exposed when the team deliberately spills a drink on her and her coherent, inane train of thought (actually her thought shield) keeps going the way it was going for several seconds before acknowledging it.
* DarkAndTroubledPast:
** Yulia’s father disappeared a few years before the first book, and she, her brother and her mother had to move in with relatives and nearly starve trying to split two ration allotments five ways. Then we find out [[spoiler:those mysteriously absent memories were deliberately erased by her father [[ForYourOwnGood for her own good]]]].
** Valentin has it worse, though. After he struggles with the memory for two books, we finally learn that [[spoiler:his mother, who never learned to control her psychic powers and was sure he wouldn’t be able to control his, tried to [[OffingTheOffspring drown them both]] to “free” them. He barely survived; [[DrivenToSuicide she didn’t]]]].
* EmotionBomb: Yulia regularly struggles with the emotions she picks up from everything around her until she learns she can do this to get rid of them. [[spoiler:More than once it puts a major villain out of action.]]
* GameBreaker: “Scrubbers” are considered this in-universe for their ability to not just read minds, unlike most psychics, but [[MindRape rearrange]] [[{{Brainwashed}} them]]. Both books are full of [[NightmareFuel nightmare-inducing]] descriptions of what it feels like to be attacked by one, and what they’re capable of making people do.
* GenerationXerox: Like her parents during World War II, Yulia goes on to become half of a psychic SpyCouple. [[spoiler:As the series goes on, the jovial Sergei also becomes more and more like his parents... who are [[BigBad General Rostov]] and Major Kruzenko.]]
* NotSoDifferent: The similarities and differences between the CIA and KGB are [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] throughout ''Skandal''. Ultimately, [[spoiler:while Yulia is never happy with the CIA, she sees the “absence of fear” in Washington compared to Moscow and decides that makes it worth helping]].
* ParentalAbandonment: Yulia [[spoiler:first by her father, then apparently by her mother, depending on which country she’s in at the time]]. She also spends ''Skandal'' feeling emotionally abandoned [[spoiler:by her father; it turns out it’s his way of [[DrowningMySorrows not coping well]] with what he had to do to leave the USSR behind, namely erasing all his own memories of his wife]].
* PsychicNosebleed: Unusually for a medium that also thoroughly shows the action inside the characters' heads.
* RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude: Crosses over into ChildSoldiers. The USSR [[NotSoDifferent and the United States]] both start training psychics and even using them for fieldwork as soon as their powers start to show, usually well before they turn 18.
* TheSixties: ''Skandal'' is set in Washington, DC in 1964, and features [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson LBJ]], Jackie Kennedy-style suits, beehive hairdos, hippies, the CivilRightsMovement, and lots of talk about a possible [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar war with Vietnam]].
* ShownTheirWork: The level of detail that went into researching the Washington and Moscow areas during the 60's (complete with [[spoiler:plot-related moving of the Soviet embassy to its present-day site]]) is evident throughout.
* StateSec: Omnipresent (naturally). Yulia's unwilling recruitment to work for them kicks off the plot.
* WeirdHistoricalWar: The Cold War [[AC:with psychics]]!
* AdultFear: Yulia’s parents [[IDidWhatIHadToDo did what they had to do]] to keep her and Zhenya safe from USSR StateSec, which motivates most of [[spoiler:both of their actions throughout both books, most notably when her father risks derailing a CIA operation to bring Yulia to the US]]. In real life, the USSR was one of many dictatorships to exploit IHaveAFamily this way.
* BadPowersGoodPeople: NiceGuy Valentin is a scrubber, capable of making people do whatever he wants. Unlike the ones working for the villains, the worst he ever actually does with it is a CharmPerson glamour when he needs to get into a building. [[spoiler:Still, it’s a relief for him at the end of ''Skandal'' when he [[BroughtDownToNormal loses his powers]].]]
** The ending of ''Sekret'' reveals that [[spoiler:that American scrubber who was too powerful to even look at, who kept showing up wherever their team deployed and ruining everything, is actually Yulia’s father Andrei]]. There’s some doubt over whether this trope applies during ''Skandal'' [[spoiler:as he’s acting like a JerkAss and abusing his powers left and right, and at one point Yulia even wonders whether he’s the mole. It eventually turns out he really is a good guy who’s in a self-destructive spiral after [[IDidWhatIHadToDo damaging his own brain to escape]], and starts to get it together toward the end of the book]].
* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: Throughout the series, there are examples of people trying to resist scrubbers' control over them, scrubbers trying to control each other, multiple scrubbers fighting for control over the same person, etc., leading to lots of this. Sometimes shown from the outside; people move jerkily or look like they're fighting against invisible enemies. At one point there's a CarChase between two scrubbers where both cars are constantly fishtailing as their drivers struggle to stay in control of their own minds.
* BilingualBonus: Lots throughout for Russian-speaking readers, though it’s generally limited to concepts that translate clumsily into English (e.g. ''molodtsa'' [[note]]which in English would be “A woman who’s just done an excellent job of something,” and even that doesn’t carry over the extra connotation that the speaker knows the woman in question fairly well[[/note]]).
* ConvenientlyCoherentThoughts: Or rather [[SpotTheThread suspiciously coherent thoughts]]. A mole is exposed when the team deliberately spills a drink on her and her coherent, inane train of thought (actually her thought shield) keeps going the way it was going for several seconds before acknowledging it.
* DarkAndTroubledPast:
** Yulia’s father disappeared a few years before the first book, and she, her brother and her mother had to move in with relatives and nearly starve trying to split two ration allotments five ways. Then we find out [[spoiler:those mysteriously absent memories were deliberately erased by her father [[ForYourOwnGood for her own good]]]].
** Valentin has it worse, though. After he struggles with the memory for two books, we finally learn that [[spoiler:his mother, who never learned to control her psychic powers and was sure he wouldn’t be able to control his, tried to [[OffingTheOffspring drown them both]] to “free” them. He barely survived; [[DrivenToSuicide she didn’t]]]].
* EmotionBomb: Yulia regularly struggles with the emotions she picks up from everything around her until she learns she can do this to get rid of them. [[spoiler:More than once it puts a major villain out of action.]]
* GameBreaker: “Scrubbers” are considered this in-universe for their ability to not just read minds, unlike most psychics, but [[MindRape rearrange]] [[{{Brainwashed}} them]]. Both books are full of [[NightmareFuel nightmare-inducing]] descriptions of what it feels like to be attacked by one, and what they’re capable of making people do.
* GenerationXerox: Like her parents during World War II, Yulia goes on to become half of a psychic SpyCouple. [[spoiler:As the series goes on, the jovial Sergei also becomes more and more like his parents... who are [[BigBad General Rostov]] and Major Kruzenko.]]
* NotSoDifferent: The similarities and differences between the CIA and KGB are [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] throughout ''Skandal''. Ultimately, [[spoiler:while Yulia is never happy with the CIA, she sees the “absence of fear” in Washington compared to Moscow and decides that makes it worth helping]].
* ParentalAbandonment: Yulia [[spoiler:first by her father, then apparently by her mother, depending on which country she’s in at the time]]. She also spends ''Skandal'' feeling emotionally abandoned [[spoiler:by her father; it turns out it’s his way of [[DrowningMySorrows not coping well]] with what he had to do to leave the USSR behind, namely erasing all his own memories of his wife]].
* PsychicNosebleed: Unusually for a medium that also thoroughly shows the action inside the characters' heads.
* RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude: Crosses over into ChildSoldiers. The USSR [[NotSoDifferent and the United States]] both start training psychics and even using them for fieldwork as soon as their powers start to show, usually well before they turn 18.
* TheSixties: ''Skandal'' is set in Washington, DC in 1964, and features [[UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson LBJ]], Jackie Kennedy-style suits, beehive hairdos, hippies, the CivilRightsMovement, and lots of talk about a possible [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar war with Vietnam]].
* ShownTheirWork: The level of detail that went into researching the Washington and Moscow areas during the 60's (complete with [[spoiler:plot-related moving of the Soviet embassy to its present-day site]]) is evident throughout.
* StateSec: Omnipresent (naturally). Yulia's unwilling recruitment to work for them kicks off the plot.
* WeirdHistoricalWar: The Cold War [[AC:with psychics]]!
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[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sekret_skandal.png]]
''Sekret'' is a 2014 novel by Lindsay Smith. It follows Yulia Chernina, a Soviet teenager with psychic abilities, as she's unwillingly recruited into spying for the USSR. She meets a whole team of similarly gifted teenagers and has to learn to control her new abilities, navigate StateSec's literal thought policing, succeed in her new career as a spy while facing off against an opponent so powerful she [[PowerGlows can't look directly at him]], deal with revelations about her family history and the nature of her abilities, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and handle]] dating, [[AlphaBitch alpha bitches]], and general petty teenage drama in her circle of "coworkers."
The story is continued in ''Skandal'' (2015), which shows the state of psychic spying on [[{{Eagleland}} the other side]] of the Cold War.
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!! This series provides examples of:
''Sekret'' is a 2014 novel by Lindsay Smith. It follows Yulia Chernina, a Soviet teenager with psychic abilities, as she's unwillingly recruited into spying for the USSR. She meets a whole team of similarly gifted teenagers and has to learn to control her new abilities, navigate StateSec's literal thought policing, succeed in her new career as a spy while facing off against an opponent so powerful she [[PowerGlows can't look directly at him]], deal with revelations about her family history and the nature of her abilities, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and handle]] dating, [[AlphaBitch alpha bitches]], and general petty teenage drama in her circle of "coworkers."
The story is continued in ''Skandal'' (2015), which shows the state of psychic spying on [[{{Eagleland}} the other side]] of the Cold War.
----
!! This series provides examples of:
