< Reflections Lost on a Dark Road
Reflections Lost on a Dark Road/YMMV
- 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 crossed with a Crossover: Ranma ½ + the DCAU / Ranma ½ + X-COM(with a throwaway Inuyasha reference[1])
- 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.
- Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Readers who surf in to read more of Lathis' Dark Titans work should be aware of this or it will hit HARD. Where Do You Think You Are? This ain't the DCAU anymore. This is X-COM. Throw the cannon fodder at the aliens or be drowned in it yourself. Vivisect or be vivisected. Mindwipe or be deluged by stupid cultists. Xenocide or Genocide. Silly Titan, Idealism Is For Corpses!
- 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 by then turning 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. They don't care if they live or die, or what happens to their civilization after they kill all the aliens, so why should the reader? What you wonder is if Our Heroes the Teen Titans will make it out of the Waffen-XX dimension alive, or if they'll even get to die sane.
- Moral Event Horizon: See Mood Whiplash. The enemy is deliberately constructed in such a manner that justifies virtually every single aspect of what by real world standards translate as war-crime acts, and with every alternate angle covered, as such idealists are left with no other option but conform, and run over their lines of restraint. That said, in this type of unrealistic scenario, it would obviously be justified as no other option was left, but the narrative is still very (mis)leading.
- A lot of Titans fans want to see X-COM lose because they Mind Raped Starfire.
- ↑ as in Inuyasha shows up and is thrown away to prove that this is a Crapsack World
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