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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Many readers have noticed that since waking up on Pathfinder after her memory backlash Jinx has been acting more like a supervillain than she did when she was an actual supervillain. Is this a consequence of the dimension, Raven's perception of who Jinx is superimposing itself over who Jinx truly is, or Jinx's own consciousness grasping at the supervillain label to provide a sense of identity now that so much of her psyche is inconsistent.
    • Ukyo and Ryu copulating in a de facto morgue is a discomfiting mental image in itself, but then there is the mystery behind why Ukyo suddenly became so lascivious. Was she haunted by her memories of her alternate Heresiarch life and trying to bury them in the arms of someone else? Was she attempting to spite Ranma for rejecting her by having sex where he, as Pathfinder's pilot, might be able to watch? Was Ukyo simply using Ryu to gain access to the storage room and further Trespasser's objectives? Whatever the motivation, it felt like Ukyo and Ryu made love for the wrong reasons here, and that is both sad and potentially damaging for any long-term relationship they hope to have.
    • Ranma like X-Ryoga has PTSD from his fight with Trencard Cologne which explains why he Forgot About His Powers. Ranma is currently just going through the motions acting like people have always perceived him as instead of how he usually acts (the pop culture references are just him repeating things he’s heard from the various soldiers). He stays focused when he's needed, but every other time, he just has his head in the clouds, which is why Jinx can openly insult shampoo in front of him. Even in battle, he's already defeated Saffron, so he didn't fight nearly as seriously as he normally would have so was caught completely unaware.
      • Ranma's Friend or Idol mental battle with Saffron was him coming to terms with this and had nothing to do his and Akane's relationship. Akane represented his psychosis. Does he give up let her go and continue on as he has. Or does he keep fighting. The fact that he chose the later will mean that will start to see the characterization depicted in The Road to Cydonia.
      • Ryu's flanderization to Handsome Lech is caused by his worry about what would happen at Cydonia. This causes him to push the issue with Ukyo because he wants to be intimate with the woman he cares about at least once before they die.
    • Due to the relationship between Ryoga and the female Titans, which makes him come across like an emotionally Dirty Coward who is unwilling to get into a relationship, you can't help but wonder if was Ryoga confessing to Akane about being P-chan really the noble act he tried to make it out to be, or if he was just running away again.
  • Anvilicious: Due to their complete and utter inability to except the Crapsack World they've been transported to, many of the Titans' arguments come across as this, such as their reasons for not allowing Akira to die as a human.
  • Ass Pull: Ranma thinking Akane is holding him back. Nothing in the narrative before this revelation even hinted that he was thinking this.
    • Plus the fact that Akane has barely been around him for quite some time makes it unlikely for this to even be a factor.
    • It has been noticed that despite the fact that the Titans have been transported to a world that averts the "good guys always win," they still seem to be getting lucky every time something happens to them.
    • Jinx's status as Creator's Pet causes her to repeatedly use moves that she shouldn't know or even have the ability to perform, such as Ranma's ability to stick to walls.
    • Ryoga being able to defeat Ukyo's final attack by kissing Starfire.
  • Audience Awareness Advantage: At one part of the story it was mentioned that the Watchtower's main gun was hijacked yet the fic appears to be set some time during season one of Justice League Unlimited. So that means the Lex Luthor taking control of the tower hadn't happened yet.
  • Broken Base:
    • Chapter 17 was a polarizing chapter to say the least. Some liked the cliffhanger ending and crazy Saffron action; some disliked it.
    • The added multi crossover elements some fans felt that the portrayal of Inu-Yasha and Black Lagoon were both offensive and in poor taste and didn't need to be included. While others felt that it provided a lot of context for how Xcom operates and had a bigger impact using characters that people know then if they made up Original Characters for that part of the story.
    • X-Com’s treatment of the Titan is also this with some readers feeling that Laser-Guided Karma should come into play while others see nothing wrong with how X-com reacted. Specifically because this is the first time anything like this has come up.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Ravens dream date with ryoga.
    • The statement Ranma made in Azarath came completely out of no where and was utterly out of character not only for The Road to Cydonia but for this fic as well.
    'Ranma: Still… I guess I was kinda hoping to see just a bunch of girls and middle aged milfs prancing around like priests in a pervy RPG. If that was the case, then Raven would suddenly make perfect sense.
  • Crack Pairing: Mainly X-COM Nabiki/X-COM Ryouga, who are originally essentially each other's polar opposites. To a lesser extent Jinx/Ryouga.
  • Crossover Ship: Jinx/Ryouga, Raven/Ryouga, Starfire/Ryouga, with X-COM Ryouga lampshading that it starts to sound like Tenchi Muyo!, whereas he has a more realistic relationship.
  • Designated Hero: The Titans as a whole can be seen as this, the most obvious is the fact that they treat Ryoga’s and Jinx’s mental compulsion as true love as well as their increasing apathy for the people in the XComverse because of the dark nature of the universe. Even when they first showed up while the X-Com characters were harsh in their treatment of them the Titan’s wrote off all the damage their appearance caused as well as the people hurt as Hero Insurance and just went about their business. Cyborg was the only one who realized that this was wrong.
    • Jinx is incredibly antagonistic with literally every other character in this story. It varies between character whether or not she is an out and out Jerkass or a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, yet each time she is treated as the sympathetic party. For example Raven is called out for her dislike of Jinx and even apologizes to her despite Jinx doing nothing but insulting her whenever they see each other. Jinx even out right attacked her when she did apologize, which is Played for Laughs.
    • Raven gets increasingly arrogant as the series goes on the reason she didn’t tell the X-Com characters what the Titan’s were doing in Azarath because she believed that X-Com felt they were too important to let leave. Despite the fact that they were risking their lives to do just that and as mentioned by Word of God the titan’s contributions were minimal at best especially since they weren’t in the departments they would provide the most help. This just makes her come across as arrogant and ungreatful. There is also her "The Reason You Suck" Speech to X-Ryoga which was basically telling him that all his suffering and therefore the suffering of the X Comverse as a whole didn’t matter because it didn’t directly benefit her like T-Ryoga’s suffering did.
    • T-Ryoga repeatedly come across as a hypocritical jerkass despite this he is constantly presented as in the right eventhough many of his actions are entirely self serving. X-Ukyo put it best.
      Ukyo: You're a hundred times worse than I could ever be, a sick, indecisive piece of shit who strings his friends along. A pervert who abused the trust of someone he claimed to love. A moron who doesn't even know when he isn't wanted. An arrogant prick who butts in where he doesn't belong. Don't you try and lecture me, Hibiki. Don't you dare.
  • Designated Villain: The Hyper Griffin was in the process of being dissected alive when it sent the Titans to the XComverse.
  • Fan Nickname: Some readers have taken to referring to Jinx as the Gambling queen as she is the main catalyst for forgetting about her powers in this fic as well as The Worf Effect.
  • Fanon: Unlike Dark Titans and The Road to Cydonia which characterized mainly from the Anime and Manga respectively, not only is this fic is heavily Fanon it takes it up to eleven. For example it takes the idea of Ranma being a secret trekkie to him making AMERICAN pop culture references every other sentence.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Those who aren’t a fan of akane/Ranma ship choose to ignore that aspect of the fic. Which is relatively easy since matchup aren’t a big focal point of the series
  • Harsher in Hindsight: When Ryoga was trying to see his father he jokingly mentioned that Raven can brainwash X-com to let him in. Raven then threatened to brainwash him to stop suggesting doing things that would get them shot on the spot.
    • Starfire's Mind Rape is later compared to the actual rape she received from the Gordanians.
  • Heartwarming Moment: Recall the jungle world, where they found the blue aliens and had to get rid of the alien Frisbees. Consider the scene, at the end, where X-Ryo is contemplating 'dealing with' the impregnated aliens and the altered alien fetus' within them. Perhaps it wasn't much, maybe he would have made the same decision anyway, but perhaps it was just a small nudge from the Tamaranian that led the hardened soldier to spare the unborn children, even despite the threat the represented to the species. This was the best apology Starfire could hope for given the situation.
  • Ho Yay: it wouldn’t be a lathis fic if we didn’t have these for example back before traveling to the X Comverse Ryoga called Raven out for not excepting Jinx is reasoning was literally word or word his situation with Ranma.
    • Starfire shows signs of this with Jinx during their battle.
    • Raven dreaming about kissing Jinx
    • Starfire made out with Elder Perfume to learn Chinese.
    • Jinx likes to invoke this
    Jinx: Heck yeah! I remember! Starfire jumped up a good spot or two on my list of potential lesbian encounters right there!"
    • Nabiki later kissed Raven to distract Ukyo.
  • Inferred Holocaust: There are numerous ones caused by the Titan’s which is why many consider them the Designated Hero of the series.
    • There have been many hints left that it was Trencard Akari who was revised and not human Akari. The most obvious is her referring to X-com as thieves.
    • As mentioned Starfire only has to leave a drop of DNA and the Visitors get an unstoppable weapon.
    • The dimentional teleported they created using the hypogrif
    • There is just as much chance that the baby Ryoga let live on Starfire’s behalf could end up whipping that civilization out.
    • While it hasn’t happened yet the plan Mousse and Jinx thought up is most assuredly doomed to fail.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Designated Hero Jinx's status does generally make her this. While she is a jerkass the heroes knowingly allowed her to stay mentally coerced into loving T-Ryoga which is shown to be the cornerstone of many of her decisions many of which are not very intelligence. And after Raven got rid of the coercion they completely ignore her feeling in favor of Ryoga’s.
    • In universe while connected with Jinx’s mind Raven witness just how horrible her life was before entering the Academy.
    • Despite the repeated goading by T-Ryoga and Jinx as stated Shampoo is not only older but has far more training in controlling her emotions. So as X-Ryoga stated while it is understandable that she is angry at them she is the professional.
      • It also doesn’t help that their goading only works because of the plague of Forgot About His Powers that seems to be effecting the XCOM characters.
    • Reava one of Darkseid’s female furies was [[And I Must Scream trapped in the Hulk Dimension] for centuries or even Millennia because the Thanagarian ship was sabotaged by someone working for the Guardians of the Universe. She spent most of that time chained in a room, tormented by an Old God. Before that, she was beaten, and whipped and flayed. She was violated by slaves. Even if she returns to her universe all she has to look forward to is being killed by Darkseid for her failure.
    • The Titans as a whole with the exception of Cyborg. While their complete and utter refusal to except the fact that they are in a different universe with different rule is infuriating it is understandable
  • Misblamed: While the Plot Induced Stupidity is mostly blamed on Lathis as a lot of the changes bear his mark as Cap’n Chryssalid himself as stated he is just as responsible for the character and has just as much say in what is going on.
  • Moment of Awesome: Ranma and Ryu’s batman gambit to get Reava to trust them especially since we finally get to see the intelligent soldiers depicted in The Road to Cydonia.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • A lot of Titans fans want to see X-COM lose because they Mind Raped Starfire.
    • While talking to Ukyo Nabiki mentioned how she once sold Ranma to the triads without his knowledge to repay a debt.
  • Ron the Death Eater:
    • Despite her many traits making her an insufferable read Jinx is Jerkass Woobie territory due to the fact that none of the Titan’s see anything wrong with allowing her to stay coerced into loving Ryoga. Which appears to be a major factor of her personality many readers vilify Jinx (one even going so far as wishing she was subjected to Herb's tender mercies until the bitchy annoyance was burned out of her).
    • Readers seem to give Raven the short end of the stick in the Love Triangle between her, Jinx and Ryoga. Seeing the fact that after the Justice League rejecter her request for aid against Trigun she went to fight crime and wait for the inevitable as her not deserving fair treatment.
    • Many readers don't like X-COM's treatment of the Titans despite their actions being perfectly justified given the circumstances. As well as the fact that they are shown to be far more reasonable and understanding of the Titan’s then vise versa. Instead they focus more on the fact that they live in a decidedly grey world.
  • Rooting for the Empire: You kind of want Jinx and Ryoga to get their asses kicked after awhile, especially with how ensufferable and suicidally overconfident they are
  • Squick: Reava’s carnivourous power
    • Ukyo and Ryu copulating in a de facto morgue is a discomfiting mental image in itself, but then there is the mystery behind why Ukyo suddenly became so lascivious. Was she haunted by her memories of her alternate Heresiarch life and trying to bury them in the arms of someone else? Was she attempting to spite Ranma for rejecting her by having sex where he, as Pathfinder's pilot, might be able to watch? Was Ukyo simply using Ryu to gain access to the storage room and further Trespasser's objectives? Whatever the motivation, it felt like Ukyo and Ryu made love for the wrong reasons here, and that is both sad and potentially damaging for any long-term relationship they hope to have.
      • And then there's the effect their intimacy had on Raven and how her mental deterioration has gone from "Maaaybe there's something wrong with her" to "Critical mass."
  • Strawman Has a Point:
    • When T-Ryoga found out about his father he demanded that he be let out calling X-Ryoga a monster for allowing it to happen. However as Ryu stated Tetsuya has alien implants in his brain, meaning containment is the only place where he can hold onto his free will. Then there is the fact that once T-Ryoga did meet his father all he did was yell at him for having such a horrible life.
    • Yasuda contemplating the possibility of disbanding Yankee. Yasuda made some very logical arguments that forced the Titans to contemplate their roles in this world and the value and meaning of being a team, as while in the DC Universe the team is stronger as a whole and not individually in X-Com they can do far more good in their specicialized fields.
    • X-Ryoga’s decision not to immediately teach the Titan’s double circulation as the technique was still in its experimentation phase and with the number of unique scenarios the Titan’s bring to the table it was perfectly logical for him to wait to see if it was safe. Cologne herself agreed in fact she only helped Jinx and Starfire because T-Ryoga had went ahead and taught them without asking anyone. Ryoga later apologized for waiting so long despite mentioning that accidents had already happened with the technique.
    • Aiuchi warning about how it is a bad idea to trust Tresspasser even pointing out that since he entered the ship got a lot worse. He also mentioned how obvious it was that Konetsu was no longer qualified to pilot the ship
    • The doctor that examined Ryoga given the fact that both the audience and the characters are aware that Ryoga and Jinx are mentally compelled to love each other his refusal to get it fixed doesn't comes across as the brightest thing in the world to do.
    • Lieutenant Stirling qualms about allowing the Yankee squad comes across as mean but he does actually have a point. In his own words the Titan’s have an A Class-AA psychic? An obvious alien? An admitted career criminal? And not only was the cybernetic teen - arrested for trying to hijack a satellite system - running around unescorted, they were actually giving him free run of the workshops?
      • There is also the fact that even though Cyborg has the most experience with being both a hero and a leader T-Ryoga was put in charge despite being disrespectful, disruptive and outright disdainful of his counterpart. All the Titan’s are doing is generating friction with two well established and well liked teams doing more bad then good.
      • T-Ryoga even outright admitted to learning only things that directly benefit him and his team meaning first aid but not codes. Meaning if another squad was in trouble he wouldn’t realize it.
    • While stuck in the Hulk Dimension X-Ryoga came up with a plan to send Two teams to the Thangarians ship to get the object they need. However, this was Vetoed by T-Ryoga and Raven by stating that Raven and Starfire could take far more people, hit more targets at once, as well as get to the target faster. Which would reduce the amount of time that they're all being driven slowly insane. However as Nabiki mentioned while speed is important the Hulk Dimension is riddled with hazards and the ship is the only way to map the area leaving the real possibility of them being lost in space.
    • Then there is the fact that T-Ryoga never presented a logical explanation for why it was right to teach Jinx and Starfire only using a combination of Insane Troll Logic, Self-Serving Memory and Blatant Lies
      • T-Ryoga’s first argument was that he never gave Ranma permission to learn the Moko Takabisha. While the Shishi Hokodan is a Dangerous Forbidden Technique its dangers are well known double circulation is still in its experimentation stage so anything could happen. Secondly Ranma created the Moko Takabisha himself he learned the Shishi Hokodan from Ryoga’s repeated usage and then, read the scroll to know all of its strengths and weaknesses before trail and error to create his own variation of the technique using all emotions. Finally Ranma never taught it to anybody.
      • Ryoga’s second argument was that the entire basis of the Anything Goes style is blatantly stealing any technique they can find. First Ryoga isn’t a student of anything goes second no it is not its basis is to learn and adapt many different style taking what works and discarding what doesn’t. Genma and Happosai’s penitent for stealing techniques was never once presented as a good thing as they cause more harm then good. With Genma the fact he doesn’t understand the nature of the techniques causes irrecusable damage such as the neko ken. With Happosai it is the fact that he has a pensient for using those techniques to turn children (Hinako, Kurumi, Natsumi) in to living weapons making it so they can never have normal lives.
      • Ryoga’s final argument was that Cologne never asked anyone's permission to teach him and Ranma, and she didn’t care when he tried to teach Terra the Bakusai Tenketsu. First of all Cologne the leader of the Amazon’s wouldn’t have to ask permission to teach Amazonian techniques. Secondly Cologne was furious at Ryoga for attempting to do something so dangerous and stupid.
      • What makes this worse is that when he caught Jinx attempting to use her new techniques on Shampoo he used the exact same argument that X-Ryoga used.
    • When they first came across Tresspasser the only argument the titans could give for why they should trust him was that the Guardians are immensely powerful and old while Ryu couldn’t argue with the fact that doing good for goods sake isn’t wrong the fact he and the other body was killed made the others weary of seeking him out as either he couldn’t do anything to help out or he is Brainwashed and Crazy.
    • Ryoga’s and Shampoo’s argument about the morality of being a martial artist versus being a super hero presented Ryoga as in the right when he argued that martial artist are every bit as reckless and dangerous as any meta-human, but without any of the redeeming qualities of concern for the social good. The problem is that simply isn’t true. In Ranma 1/2 martial artist play the same function as superheroes. Soun has been repeatedly called upon to stop escaped oni, Ranma has gone out of his way to help people in need even when it has nothing to do with martial arts such as trying to convince Densuke (sick kid who wouldn't take his medicine) to take his medicine. (After Densuke fainted Ranma spent the entire night at his bedside to make sure he was well), helped a little boy was afraid to go outside. He repeatedly helped Ryoga to and from school and class and has gone on a number of oni exterminations himself. Ryoga has helped a number of people in his journey’s in fact this is how he met the Titan’s. so while ryoga was presented as in the right neither party gave compelling arguments merely stated their own bias.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
    • Titans!Ryoga is told by his X-COM counterpart that all his work with the Titans at suppressing the darkness in his personality will just lead to him losing control of it. He's blowing it off, but only by admitting that the only reason he hates X-COM!Ryoga so much is because he hates himself for being vicious.
    • Cyborg's superhero efforts are mocked by X-COM, who want him to stay in the lab and build superweapons.
    • Jinx makes a real friend her own age for the first time since she rejected both the HIVE and the Titans - Trenchard!Akari - only for X-COM to accidentally-on-purpose subvert her efforts to save her so they can turn her into a test subject.
    • Raven is encouraged by X-COM to utilize the dark emotions that she's suppressed to keep her father, Trigon, from entering the universe and killing it, mostly because it's an easy way to develop her new Mind Control abilities and they don't actually believe he could be any worse than their alien enemy. She of course gets Drunk on the Dark Side.
    • And Starfire runs right into Herb of the Musk, who is so dedicated to Just Following Orders that despite realizing that she's desperately trying not to kill him, he just uses her hesitation to casually beat her unconscious. X-COM then Mind Rapes her and almost vivisects her. Only the appearance of the other Titans proves her a non-combatant(due to being more subtly Mind Raped), which leads them to instead draft her without a second thought and imprison her in an environment that browbeats her with UN legislature that aliens have no rights, and she's not an exception.
      • All in all, you don't read the fic wondering what will happen to anyone from the X-COMverse, as it's mentioned multiple times that they will likely all die in the titular assault on Cydonia, but the Titan’s presence has introduced a few scary implications.
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic: Raven is this throughout the majority of the fic. Not only is she repeatedly called out by her fellow Titans for letting Jinx win despite them knowing that they were both mentally compelled. Even when she was drunk on the dark side she flat out ask Ryoga about his feelings for Jinx. Not only could he not give her a definitive answer he reply’s that he doesn’t care that his and Jinx’s love was mentally compelled he wanted to keep them. Despite risking her life to save him, despite making amends with Jinx on his behalf he flat out tells her that she is doomed to fail, and everyone blames her. not to mention that him saying that they can have a relationship after the fact just makes it seem like he’s just stringing her along.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The Titans as a whole are this as they come across as increasingly hypocritical and apathetic throughout the story. While it is true that the X-Com characters are far more brutal they realize that this is a unique situation and repeatedly make allowances for the Titans. However the with the exception of maybe Cyborg the Titan’s refused to except the fact that they are Not in Kansas Anymore. This mentality causes them to see themselves as far more important then they actually are, but they have also cause a number of Inferred Holocaust moments.
    • The revelation that Jinx has a mental compulsion to love Ryoga is this. However it also makes TTLB completely pointless as it completely destroys the danger represented by its main antagonist. Jinx’s betrayal of Brother Blood and later her Heel–Face Turn were all due to her love for Ryoga which he created so essentially Brother Blood brought about his own downfall.
    • There is also the fact that a lot of the things she does are for completely selfish reason. When X-Ryoga destroyed the thing that would keep Akari alive because she wanted to die as herself Jinx replied that she didn’t care what Akari wanted. Adding further insult to injury there are numerous hints that he Titan’s efforts to save Akari just caused her to come back wrong.
    • The fix for why Jinx attacked Kasumi after Ryoga revealed Akari's fate to the rest of the Titans was essentially the Medical Ward being pretty much a faceless entity, as she doesn't know anything about anyone working in it. Except for Kasumi. Given that Jinx only saved Akari because he cared less about Akari’s wants then her but as stated by Word of god knowing that Kasumi is pretty much the kind of person that wouldn't want to create trouble for all of her friends just made her decision all the easier. Basically Jinx attacked Kasumi because of a combination of It's All About Me and Never My Fault.
    • This isn’t the first time Jinx has showed this smug attitude such as when Akari called her out for implying that even though it was a sham she deserved Ryoga’s love because of how hard her life was.
    • Starfire is a special case as her Mind Rape was a truly tearjerker moment in the fic. However this is more of a case unintentionally sympathetic as Starfire was a truly unique experience in the X-Comverse and they make many allowances for her such as allowing her to fight even though a single drop of her blood could give the enemy an unstoppable Trencard. However Starfire starts to become far less sympathetic due to the fact that as the series goes on she starts to sound more and more like Val Yor (using humans as a derogatory term, referring to her friends as the good ones) while showing increased apathy for the suffering of the X-Comverse.
    • T-Ryoga is always depicted as sympathetic and in the right yet he repeatedly comes across as hypocritical, petty, and apathetic, even when he has a point he doesn’t lose these traits. For example one of the most used instances of this is his habit of beating down the X-Com characters every time something bad happens such as when during his battle with Ukyo when he mentioned how death will mean he can escape Ranma. Or the fact that he blamed X-Com and only X-Com when no one noticed that Raven was hurt (including his fellow Titan’s). he even went so far as to say that Nabiki who was hurt as well wasn’t as important. There also him mentioning that X-Ryoga wouldn’t care if something happened to Nabiki.
      • Despite X-Ryoga repeated attempts to find common ground with T-Ryoga even going so far as to suggest they see the therapist T-Ryoga repeatedly downplays the suffering of X-Ryoga specifically and the X-Comverse as a whole such as saying that his biggest problems are booty calls and his ego. He even went so far that Akari’s suffering didn’t matter as the Titan’s did the right thing by saving her life.
      • Ryoga is also depicted as the victim of the love triangle between him, Raven, and Jinx. Raven is repeatedly called out for missing her chance and everyone tries to get Jinx to see reason when the mental compulsion is taken away. However, Ryoga was fully aware of the compulsion even going so far as being assured that she didn’t have a choice but to love him. Further more while his situation was compared to Ranma’s. Ranma was honor bound by all of his fiancée’s something Ryoga isn’t. it just come across as Ryoga stringing Raven and Starfire along while he’s in a relationship with Jinx. Raven is the one bending over backwards for him, she is the one called out for the problems in the relationship. Jinx is made to feel guilty for not loving him. Nothing Ryoga has done is depicted as being in the wrong.
      • Finally, there are his arguments with his parents. While Ranma and the others can understand the consequences of his curse, (i.e not having a lot of friends, being alone a lot, endless traveling) they can’t really understand how (truly dehabilitating it is) so it is understandable why he would get angry when they mention it. However his mother and father understand perfectly what he is going through so his yelling at them doesn’t have the same impact as say Ranma doing the same thing to Genma or Nodoka. Tetsuya and Mitsuko are shown to be loving and understanding parents and despite the horrible situation they are in (Tetsuya being Brainwashed and Crazy, Mitsuko worrying about her husband and son) they except responsibility every hurtful thing T-Ryoga says to them. When you add the fact that he isn’t even their actual child and he is essentially calling them out for giving birth to him and he just comes across like a Spoiled Brat.
    • The Titan aren’t the only ones who fall into this trope however. Mousse has zig zagged in and out of this trope throughout The Road to Cydonia series. Back in the first he tried to use the fact that he didn’t attempt to brainwash Shampoo into loving him as the reason she should love him comically missed the point of not doing it in the first place. In Reflection on a lost Dark Road he goes back and forth between realizing this and not until he and Jinx devise a plan to trick her into loving him.
      • The plan itself is almost assuredly doomed to fail as it rely’s entirely on Shampoo being stupid enough to fall for it. While Jinx has shown to have a horrible opinion of Shampoo Mousse claims to love her yet displays such blatant disrespect for her. This not only makes Mousse this trope but also Too Dumb to Live. Mousse grew up in a matriarch society yet shows such obvious disrespect the village champion that you wonder why he wasn’t killed long time ago.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Ranma the road to cydonia is a continuation of the manga and for the most par ranma was written like his manga counterpart. However reflection on a lost dark road uses mainly a fanon interpretation and not good fanon making him come across like an idiot. This is further aggravated by numerous traits he hasn’t shown until this fic such as making numerous pop culture references as well as perverted remarks. All in all this character and the one seen in the road to cydonia come across as totally different people.
    • Where X-COM have taken a level in dumbass the titan’s have taken a level of jerkass. The point of the story in to place the titan’s in a more darker greyer universe however their personalities seemed to made more darker to match. So instead of them reacting to this greyer world they come across as increasingly hypocritical and apathetic from the start even out right heartless at times.
    • Cyborg is the only Titan who hasn’t taken a level of jerkass, and he understands that heroic insurance no longer applies in the X-COM universe. So it makes no sense both in and out of universe why Ryoga was chosen over him to lead Yankee squad especially since he has more experience as both a superhero and a leader.
    • Dark Titan’s was written as a counterpart of all the Ryoga-bashing fics however reflections on a lost dark road shows a Ryoga devolved into to the same two dimensional interpretation usually reserved for bad bash fics as not only does he come across as incredibly hypocritical and apathetic but outright evil at time given the revelation about Jinx. The Titans clearly have a bad influence on Ryoga and vise versa leaving you wondering what was the point.
    • Jinx’s main focus in Dark Titan’s was The Atoner who performed a Heel–Face Turn in order to make up for kidnapping Ryoga and manipulating him into loving her. However, the revelation that she was coerced into loving ryoga as well completely ruins this interpretation as well as introduces many disturbing implications.
    • The entirety of X-COM have been dumbed down or changed in order for the Titans to remain morally superior so instead of older and wiser counterparts were have a sex crazed Ryu, a Mousse who can’t understand why not enslaving Shampoo didn’t instantly send her into his arm (and later plan on working with Jinx into manipulating her into loving him, and a Shampoo who is treated as the The Chew Toy for somehow being weaker than a girl who has only had two month’s of hard training.
    • Akane and Ranma have gone through a Relationship Upgrade however a combination of the continual case of What Happened to the Mouse?. Where before while both ranma and Akane when through character development their relationship didn’t making it seem as they just didn’t work well with each other. However, the negative traits added to Ranma plus the fact that akane has barely been around makes it appear that all the blame has been shifted to him.
    • Saffron his defeat was nothing more than Character Shilling for the Titans and it requires both Ranma and Saffronto hold the Idiot Ball to create the need for Starfire to defeat him.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Why hasn’t Ranma used the psi training program that puts you face to face with your fears to try to master the neko ken or at least overcome his fear of cats?
    • In both Dark Titans and here Ryu and Ranma don’t try to create new senken from different elements besides earth and water and different applications of a house besides breaking an entering.
    • The fic never went into the Blue-and-Orange Morality difference between martial arts and superheroes. Instead opting to say how selfish martial artist are when compared to superheroes.
    • In the Ranma universe when ever someone puts on a mask that it means they are up to no good happosai and his panty raid, genma when he tried to trick Ranma during the cradle from hell arc, ect. Ranma and co repeatedly help people (deal with spirits, crime, monsters) without hiding behind a secret identity either people come to the dojo specifically to ask for their help or they just happen to be there. Soun tendo even works on the city council.
    • There is a fundamental disconnect between the ideals of altruism and self interest, and both sides are more or less incapable of understanding the other's point of view. That doesn't mean that just because an organization can't live up to the ideals of a team of super heroes, that they must automatically fall to evil.
    • The purpose of reflections lost on a dark road is to have the characters from dark titans to meet the characters from the road to cydonia however as mentioned that simply not the case.
    • While Shampoo is shown to be experiencing the residual effects from the memories of her alternate self. We never see the effects it has on T-Ryouga at least it's less obvious with him.
    • We never get to see what code names Ranma, Cyborg and Jinx's chose.
    • Or find our how reava is speaking English since it likely didn’t exist when she got trapped in the bleed.
    • Not once is the fact that Inuyasha looks and sounds exactly like Ranma mentioned
    • Lampshaded in universe is the fact that we never get to see a let you and him fight between Juliet squad and Roberta
    Ranma: Wish we could've seen that super maid Ranma told us about. Watching her tear up the town would certainly help pass the time.
    • We never get to see a spring of Drowned Tamaranian
    • At least with Yankee squad under Juliet's supervision the chances of one of the titans threatening Jinx with telling Ranma about her "prank" have gone up.
    • Mentioned that the kounji style was based on ninjutsu but never did anything with it
    • Word of God states that he is thinking of keeping ranma’s new Thanagarian body when they return home, though it's reverting here. Probably tie it into the thing with Shandra Mal which mostly wraps up next chapter. However if mixing Jusenkyo Springs can blend curses (e.g., the addition of tentacles to Taro's cursed from) then mixing Jusenkyo magic with Old God reality transformations could certainly alter the "Curse of the Spring of the Drowned Girl" to "Curse of the Murdered Female Thanagarian" (A very tragic story...).

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