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Fanfic / Coincidence and Misunderstandings

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Coincidence and Misunderstandings by Silently Watches is a Teen Titans (2003) story about Raven's ascension to adulthood and the problems this entails for a half-demon. Better than it sounds.

Its sequel, Consequence of Misunderstandings, has Team Black Magic consisting of Jinx, Raven, Mammoth, and Gizmo return to Jump City for a mission.

It also has one spin-off story to date: Collapse from Misunderstandings by storytell18.


This fic contains examples of the following tropes, in addition to those already present in the source material:

  • Abusive Parents: Melvin's biological father.
  • Actually Pretty Funny: When Raven catches Jinx robbing a jewelry store, her excuse makes even Raven laugh.
  • Anthropomorphic Personification: According to Trigon, Jinx is an avatar of chaos.
  • An Arm and a Leg: When Raven destroys Mumbo's cannons and wand, the backlash destroys his hand as well.
  • Back from the Dead: Terra sorta. She's alive and has her powers but absolutely no memory of her former life.
  • Badass Boast: When Beast Boy threatens Raven over the fact she's apparently dating Jinx.
    Raven: Let me be clear, Garfield Mark Logan. You will keep silent about my outing, not out of loyalty or friendship, but because you know how quickly I can destroy you should you get in my way. Speak, and I will demonstrate exactly how cruel the daughter of Trigon the Terrible can be.
    Beast Boy: Except you're not your father! The four of us can take you on.
    Raven: "If you couldn't even scratch Him, how could you possibly hope to defeat His killer?
  • Bad Powers, Good People: Deconstructed with Jinx back when she was a Titan and Kid Flash's girlfriend. While her Heel–Face Turn was genuine, her hex powers were entirely destructive and caused collateral damage. Kid Flash constantly giving her grief about it, combined with facing hostility from her former teammates from H.I.V.E for "betraying" them, caused their relationship to deteriorate. Kid Flash threatening to have Jinx arrested for letting H.I.V.E members run away unpunished was the last straw that pushed Jinx to break up with him and leave the Titans.
  • Berserk Button: In Coincidence, while talking with Raven in Flavors of Asia, Jinx makes a mental note to find where Raven's berserk button is and avoid it.
  • A Birthday, Not a Break: Raven's 19th birthday involves such hassles as fighting Dr. Light, facing and embracing her demonic heritage, and publicly fighting the Titans before quitting the team.
  • Bring My Brown Pants: One of the HIVE students in the team that killed Jinx wets herself upon being confronted by demon Raven.
  • The Chessmaster: Doctor Fate manipulates the events of the sequel to cause minimal damage to the world.
  • Combat Pragmatist: All of Team Black Magic. Justified, given that they spent the last five years as black ops in the military and losing meant dying and being disowned by their organization.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: Besides sheer power, the main difference between wizards/witches and sorcerers/sorceresses is that wizards/witches are only capable of any significant skill in one or two branches of magic. Sorcerers/sorceresses can learn every branch.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: What Raven does to the HIVE team that killed Jinx most definitely counts.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: At the end of Coincidence, when Raven fights Dr. Light and Robin, Starfire, and Beast Boy. Later in Consequence, when Starfire tries to attack Raven, but fails miserably.
  • Dating Catwoman: Raven and Jinx.
  • Death is Cheap: Raven resurrects Jinx the chapter after she dies.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Years after quitting the Teen Titans and joining a black ops military group, Raven and Jinx finally get married and adopt Melvin, Timmy, and Teether.
  • Emotion Suppression: Deconstructed. As a half-demon, Raven had incredibly strong yet volatile power even as a young girl, and Azar divided Raven's mind into several realms governed by a single emotion to keep her powers under control. However, this left Raven psychologically damaged to the point of emotional apathy, and the teachings of Azarath, while well-meaning, pushed her to constantly deny her half-demon heritage and dividing her own mind even further. Her emotions gradually became separate entities, and by the time of Coincidence, they decided it's ultimately the best for all if Raven accepted her emotions and half-demon heritage. It takes a while for Raven to do this, however, because the teachings of Azarath were deeply ingrained into her psyche.
  • Everyone Has Standards: When Jinx is killed, even Nightwing isn't interested in antagonizing Raven.
  • Exact Words: When Jinx and Nightwing are forced to team up against Overload, the Titan promises that "I'll work with you for this fight. The moment [Overload's] down, we're back to being enemies". Sure enough, the moment Jinx destroys the A.I.'s chip, Nightwing attacks her from behind and knocks her out.
  • Face-Revealing Turn: How Wykkyd finds out Raven is possessing the HIVE student he just rescued.
  • False Friend: Starfire eventually rationalizes that Raven was simply hiding her demonic nature for the five years that Raven was on the team, biding her time until she can destroy the world like Trigon would. It's far from the truth, but there's no convincing a prejudiced mind...
  • Fantastic Racism:
    • Starfire adamantly believes all demons are evil (admittedly, not without cause). Once Raven embraces her demonic heritage, Starfire tries to kill her every time they meet.
    • Team Black Magic's commanding officer is bigoted against both metahumans and gays. It doesn't end well for him when he insults Raven's and Jinx's relationship within earshot shortly after they're engaged.
    • Likewise, Zatanna goes out of her way to antagonize Raven and anyone else on the chaos side of Order Versus Chaos while in the Eldritch Enclave, despite the fact such behavior can lead to her expulsion from the Enclave (which is functionally a death sentence).
  • Fate Worse than Death: Slade is sent to Hell. To make it worse, while Slade's trapped there, he can't die, which makes this far worse than prison, where he'd likely have ended up dying from lung cancer in a matter of weeks.
  • First-Name Basis: Most of Team Black Magic. In addition, by the second story, Raven calls every member of the Titans by their real name, even in front of her team and her commanding officer, and in public.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Plasmius used to be a simple construction worker named Otto von Furth.
  • Forgotten Birthday: Near the end of the first story, Persephone wonders why Raven seemed moodier than usual that day, causing Cyborg to realize it's Raven's birthday. Though to be fair, she never makes a big deal of her birthday and last year they were sidetracked by Slade's resurrection.
  • Gaining the Will to Kill: Raven's Ascension causes her to become darker in mind and body - this is marked by her decision to mentally kill Dr. Light via Go Mad from the Revelation at the end of the first story to prevent him from harming anyone else, though she regrets this when she realizes that the Titans wanted to interrogate him.
  • Gentle Giant: Gizmo remarks that Mammoth takes mercy kills the hardest out of the group.
  • Heroic Self-Deprecation: In her first chat with Jinx, Raven does this, especially given how distant she is from the other Titans.
  • Hypocrite:
    • Jinx realizes that despite having two members who were from different worlds, the Titans were giving all their attention to the fun and bubbly Starfire while ignoring the more stoic Raven because she was the "creepy" one — thus creating a Vicious Cycle where Raven isolates herself to protect herself from her own teammates' rejection, only to end up more hurt and become more isolated when the rejection continues.
    • Robin chastises the other Titans for keeping secrets, yet keeps detailed files on how to take them down a secret. This is a sentiment shared by both Raven and the author.
    • Starfire believes that because Raven's brother and father were evil, that Raven is herself evil and is outraged when Persephone accuses her of being a criminal, just like her sister Blackfire.
    • Zatanna tells Raven she needs to take responsibility for her failings, only for Raven to counter that Zatanna had convinced the Justice League to reject her plea for help.
  • Implausible Deniability: Raven catches Jinx robbing a jewelry store and this trope goes both ways.
    Raven: And what, exactly, is your purpose here? Well?
    Jinx: (with bags of stolen jewelry in hand) I? I was just taking a midnight stroll. And what are you doing here, Ms. Titan, hmm?
    Raven: And the bags, Ms. Thief?
    Jinx: Well, how else would I window shop?
    Raven: (while laughing) I do not believe that is how that particular practice is performed.
    Jinx: "Fine, just cuff me and let's go.
    (Raven teleports the bags several feet away)
    Raven: I see no evidence of any crime, so I suppose I will have to accept that you are, indeed, partaking in an innocuous walk. I would advise you, however, that your record is against you and grounds for suspicion. I really should escort you to your residence. However, I am now 'off-duty', so I trust you can make your own way home.
  • Important Haircut: It happens off-screen, but both Jinx and Mammoth cut their hair when they enlist in the military and realize how impractical it is while in the field.
  • Killed Offscreen: See-More died during the time-skip when he took some bad heroin.
  • Lawful Stupid: Nightwing tries to arrest Jinx for vandalism and murder after she helps him stop Overload by blowing up the factory they were in. He's technically correct in doing so (she did damage derelict city property and destroyed the A.I.), but it's roundly considered a suicidal move by both the Titans and Team Black Magic.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Cinderblock after Slade upgrades him.
  • Mercy Kill: Mammoth does this for Plasmius/Otto von Furth after Slade makes it impossible for him to sleep (and thus stay human). Gizmo mentions that while Raven's healing powers do prevent most of them, the team has had to perform mercy kills before.
  • Mission Control: Gizmo functions as this most of the time.
  • Mook Horror Show: Raven when she's pissed.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After learning Jinx was letting several H.I.V.E members run away instead of stopping them, Kid Flash threatened to turn her over to the police. This worsened Jinx's feelings over her Heel–Face Turn in canon and how her ex-H.I.V.E teammates felt about it, and it led to them having a messy breakup. Raven knew that Kid Flash felt really crummy about his actions by sensing his guilt when he informed the Titans of Jinx's departure.
  • Named by the Adaptation: Jinx's real name is Nirupama Dasgupta, as her family is from Bangladesh.
  • The Needs of the Many: A downplayed example. Dr. Fate manipulates the events of the sequel to cause the second least amount of death as the actual least would have resulted in the deaths of Zatanna and Wonder Woman.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Starfire attacking Raven in public allowed Slade to learn about Raven coming back, thereby robbing Team Black Magic of their advantage of surprise.
  • Nightmare Fetishist: Melvin's creatures are noticeably darker and more twisted than when she was a child, thanks to Gizmo introducing her to horror movies.
  • Noodle Incident: Several of Team Black Magic's missions are mentioned (where they've been) without a lot of detail, plus Jinx's mention of how Raven looks good in a nurse outfit (role play).
  • Nothing Personal: Rage insists it's nothing personal while attempting to kill Raven to escape her mind. However, she eventually decides It's Personal for Raven keeping her locked up inside of her mind.
  • Oh, Crap!: Jinx in Chapter 1 gets a moment of this when Raven intercepts her after she robs a jewelry store.
    Oh, fuuuck. That was just what she didn't need right now.
  • Only Sane Man: Cyborg (and later Persephone) are the only Titans willing to call Robin (and later Starfire) out for their unfair treatment of Raven.
  • Place of Protection: The Eldritch Enclave is a place of neutrality and nonviolence. Violating these rules will lead to formal expulsion and being labelled a warlock. This is a death sentence, given that magic users who have been blacklisted had a life expectancy of months, thanks to no longer having a network of mages willing to support them in any way.
  • Please Put Some Clothes On: When Raven delivers the USB drive with the Red-X designs to Jinx's apartment, she encounters her completely naked (having taken a shower). Raven asks Jinx to put some clothes on, but she refuses, saying she likes seeing Raven flustered like she was. Interestingly enough, moments later, Raven is just as naked as Jinx.
  • Poor Communication Kills: The plot is kicked off by this, as Raven assumes that if the team wanted to know more about her they'd ask, and the team assuming that if Raven (who initially valued her privacy) wanted them to know her past she'd tell them. Raven at one point notes that Jinx learned more about her culture from one short conversation than all the Titans did in five years of living with her combined. This total lack of communication singlehandedly causes the Titans to eventually fracture.
  • Power Perversion Potential: Raven sometimes uses her powers to form tentacles. Jinx is not happy about this.
  • Pragmatic Hero: Both Cyborg and Lisa (aka Persephone) dislike killing, but they're also willing to admit it's sometimes necessary.
  • Promoted to Parent: In the sequel Melvin, Timmy, and Teether consider Raven their mother.
  • One-Winged Angel: Part of Raven's Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Raven against HIVE for killing Jinx.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Billy is convinced to visit his parents out of town when Jinx describes the job her team is in Jump City for.
  • Secret Test of Character: Officially, the military branch Raven and co. join do not recruit any metahumans with a criminal record. In reality, they simply want to make sure the recruits are motivated and willing to do unethical things to succeed in their goals (by bribing the right people to clean up and/or erase their records). The head even states that metahumans without criminal records are rarely cut out for the kind of work they'd have to do, being too passive and used to toeing the line.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: Starfire's prejudice against Raven is due to the havoc one of Raven's half-siblings wreaked on Tamaran centuries before. When she finally explains this, Persephone points out that by that logic, Starfire is culpable for the crimes committed by her sister Blackfire as well.
  • Stranger in a Familiar Land: Raven and company have this reaction when they're ordered back to Jump City after five years.
  • Tailor-Made Prison: Raven's discovery of one Robin built to use as a contingency against her — half a year before she showed any signs of behavior that might justify him needing one is the final straw that convinces her to leave the Titans.
  • That Man Is Dead: Terra is revived near the end of the first story but has lost all her memories and takes up the name Persephone instead.
  • This Is Unforgivable!: Raven insists that she will never forgive Zatanna for convincing the Justice League not to help her when she first came to Earth, begging for their help against Trigon.
  • Took a Level in Badass:
    • All of Team Black Magic due to both becoming more powerful in some cases (like Raven) and that they spent five years as black ops specialists.
    • Also Overload, Cinderblock, and Plasmus, who have all gotten a power boost from Slade's artificer equipment, making them strong enough that an individual Titan can't take them on alone.
  • The Unfettered: Raven is perfectly willing to work with the Titans or simply live and let live. She's also perfectly willing to brutally murder all of them as a warning to other heroes and villains to not to mess with her.
  • Unrelated in the Adaptation: In Teen Titans (2003), Jinx and Kid Flash started dating after the former betrayed Madame Rouge and pulled a Heel–Face Turn. Here, Jinx reveals they had a messy breakup because Kid Flash threatened to turn her over to the cops after learning she was letting several H.I.V.E. members run away instead of stopping them.
  • Villains Out Shopping: Raven and Jinx's date in the sequel, from the Titans' perspective.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Batman is not happy when Starfire attacks an unarmed civilian on a date, even if said civilian was Raven.
  • You Kill It, You Bought It: Raven reveals that killing Trigon gave her control over his armies.
  • You're Nothing Without Your Phlebotinum: Rage (Raven's fury and demonic side) explains to Raven that all of her powers come from her and her 'sisters' — that is, Raven's own emotions like Love, Fear, and Courage. Every time Raven uses her powers, she was actually using powers associated with each emotion like Love's Healing Hands, Fear's materialization, Joy's empathy, and Rage's Astral Projection. Rage claims that Raven fractured her own mind and without her emotions, she is nothing.

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