Reviews Fanfic / Reflections Lost On A Dark Road

Reflections Lost On A Dark Road

If I can think of one phrase to describe this fanfic it’s Character Derailment. I went in the to reflections lost on a dark road expecting to see the characters from Dark Titans meet the characters from The Road to cydonia and that simply isn’t the case.

As the start the Titans come across as a little hypocritical and apathetic but this aspect of them just gets worse as the story goes on to the point that by the end with the exception of Cyborg and maybe Starfire they’re just unlikable. However they are still depicted as the morally superior but this is only possible by dumbing down the XCOM characters.

Not to say their aren’t any good parts the story is great as well as the expansion of the universe and the techniques. There’s a lot of parts that are well written but it doesn’t work as well as it should. Characters should drive the plot, not be controlled by it. This problem is mainly focused on Ranma and Ryoga who come off as bad bash fic characters while everyone else are just generally derailed. Ranma just comes across as stupid while every word out of Ryoga’s mouth is hypocritical bull.

A great example would be the Just Won’t Die series where the only thing the Ranma in that fic has in common with the original is his name and appearance. While Ryoga act the same as he did in the beginning of the series despite being 80. while in Just Won’t die the writing made it charming and funny. Here since it is a continuation it is just infuriating (Ranma’s character has done a complete 180, and Ryoga seems to devolve with each sequal.

The worse of the worse however is Jinx who I’ve taken to calling the Gambling queen because she seems to be the catalyst for everything. The changes are suppose to make her come off as sympathetic but just make annoying as when every she is in the room everyone either gets dumber, weaker or more apathetic while she has become a complete self absorbed jerkass.

Finally the derailment creates numerous plot holes that makes reading not only a chore but insulting at times because they lamp[shade them so you don’t know if this is unintentional or if they are deliberately insulting you. In the end you just wonder what’s the point. Not only do the Titans seem to be having a horrible influence on Ryoga and vise versa, but the changes made ruin the Dark Titans series. While the weakened dumbed down XCOM can't possibly survive.