The Return (fanfic)

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The Return by Sunshine Temple is ostensibly a Ranma ½/Sailor Moon Crossover fic throwing Ranma and the Senshi into the world of secret government agencies, ancient conspiracies and Eldritch Abominations. It is very much of the Darker and Edgier school of ficcing.

Fans of Ranma ½ would be best served to treat it as fic featuring characters merely with the same name and a few surface similarities, as it strips virtually all canon except Ranma's curse (and even that doesn't last long), though the Senshi fare somewhat better. It stands on its own as an excellent work of original fiction, however, and no previous knowledge of the original series is required (some may argue it helps).

The story begins when Sailor Pluto seeks to replace a suddenly dead Tuxedo Mask with the nearest available candidate for Prince of Earth, Ranma Saotome. Unfortunately Ranma's curse activates in the middle of the rite, and what Pluto gets instead is the new incarnation of a very female Succubus Princess of Earth, Sailor DarkStar. Predictably, Ranma is less than thrilled by this turn of events. Shortly afterward he is recruited into a shadowy organization by secret agent Tendo, Kasumi Tendo, kicking off a twisting tale which may lead Ranma and the Senshi to save the world. Or destroy it.

Imagine Torchwood meets The X-Files, with a dash of Being Human.

Between 2017 and 2018 Sunshine Temple performed a complete rewrite of The Return, breaking it out into five separate stories:

• Brooding Responsibilities
• Betrayed Consequences
• Raising Trouble
• Capital Offense
• Blood Debts (includes a crossover with The Dresden Files)

In a note at the end of Blood Debts the author suggests that there will be further stories in The Return although none have yet appeared. Be aware that there have been a few substantial changes in characterization and plot, and not all the tropes listed below will apply to the revised version.

As of late 2021 the original version of The Return (begun in 2002 and last updated in December 2018) clocks in at nearly three-quarters of a million words across 39 chapters. The revised version has nearly a million words spanning 69 chapters in five stories.

By the same author is And If That Don't Work?, a, Evangelion alt-fic which does much the same thing with that franchise.

Tropes used in The Return (fanfic) include:

• Absurdly Youthful Mother: Sunshine comes across as one of these to Muggles due to the complicated nature of Succubae relationships.
• All the Myriad Ways: The other version of Ranma implies this trope.
• Amazon Brigade: Well, yes.
• Anvilicious: DarkStar lecturing Usagi on humanity, and Usagi Lampshading this.
• The Artifact: Happosai. He is included just to complete the checklist of Ranma characters but serves little plot function and sits uncomfortably at odds with the tone of the rest of the series. Thankfully he appears to have been dropped for all purposes bar limited cameos.
  • Also Ranma's curse, since the genderbending is more than covered due to his being the reincarnation of the Whore of Babylon Queen DarkStar.
• Automobile Opening: In this case a Motorcycle Opening, entitled "DarkStar Rides". Like the TV version of the trope, the opening is done with an eye towards cost reduction. It can be downloaded here
• Asskicking Equals Authority: Sometimes it seems that WIC operates this way, given Commander Stillwater, Captain Jarvis and Colonel Edwards.
• Ax Crazy: Ryouga, never the most stable of the Ranma characters in the first place is a total homicidal nutter in this.
• Badass Family: The Tendo-Saotome family, just in a very different way from canon. Eve's family also qualifies...
• Beware My Stinger Tail: The chainsaw-like host of mono-filaments is one of their less Squick functions.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Turned Up to Eleven
• Biker Babe: DarkStar and Eve.
• BFG: Morrison and Morgan are thrilled to find out their new physiology allows them to handle even bigger guns.
  • Slight subversion in that while the standard succubus rifle fires a massive 17mm cartridge, the weapon itself is a rather compact, if heavy, bullpup design.
• Black and Gray Morality: Let's not kid ourselves, if the bad guys weren't such bastards this would be a Villain Protagonist story.
• Blade of Fearsome Size: Yuki's knives.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Bordering on Gorn at times.
• Blue and Orange Morality: trying to map human morality onto Succubae relationships will only give you a migraine, trust me on this.
• Break the Cutie: This fic is so dedicated to breaking Usagi that it is verging on Humiliation Conga territory.
  • It doesn't help that her powers were significantly Nerfed with no reason yet given.
• Breather Episode: Two: the first is basically an Info Dump on the background of The Company, the second is a rather amusing crossover with another Ranma Fuku Fic allowing two different Fanfic continuities to meet and compare notes.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Eclipse, Yuki, Aurora, Ryouga (twice).
• Brainwash Residue: Nabiki and Akane still have a significant amount of mental contamination after being enslaved and Mind Raped by Alexia and it takes a lot of work to salvage any of their original selves.
  • Ryouga is considered a total write-off.
• Break the Badass: Essentially what Alexia does to Ryouga.
• Broken Bird: Eve and Kasumi.
• Brother-Sister Incest: Actually it's more sister and sister incest within The Brood, although in practice it's more like Not Blood Siblings (except they kinda are) with shades of Flirty Stepsiblings... did we mention that Succubae relationships are complicated?
• Butt Monkey: Tying in with Break the Cutie, Usagi is, by chapter 24, now verging on this Trope.
• Call a Human a Meatbag: Misako's favourite word to describe humans. She gets better (with prodding).
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Boy, does it ever.
  • Good thing company agents carry at all times, even when lounging around the house in underwear. Right Morgan?
• Canada, Eh?: Where the action is relocated to, for some reason, possibly Author Appeal or Write What You Know.
• Canis Latinicus: For some reason, "succubae" is the preferred plural form of "succubus" in this fic.
  • Not only that but the entire modern succubus language is this, being adapted from an abducted and converted Roman legion.
• Cape Busters: How The Company is presented as at the start.
• Church Militant: Employed by the Vatican.
  • The Assembly of Man appears to be this, but as is mentioned many times, the upper echelons are mostly nonbelievers employing the trappings of religion.
• The Clan: Succubae Broods have distinct aspects of this, especially DarkStar's which comprises several human members as well as Succubae. Also have shades of Cannibal Clan as well.
• Cleanup Crew: One the many departments within the company. Probably on triple overtime pay since Ranma joined.
  • They wear dark red trim.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Usagi, although Ranma sees her more as a Dumb Blonde.
• Colonel Badass: Colonel Edwards
  • Who is so awesome he doesn't even have to be awesome to be awesome!
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Assemblymen have similar Deflector Shields to the heroes, but they glow a radioactive green.
• Combat Pragmatist/Pragmatic Villainy: WIC takes both approaches. Have we mentioned this is a Grey and Gray Morality series?
• Comes Great Responsibility: This, combined with the The Power of Trust, is how Ranma is recruited to The Company, playing to his Martial Artist's Code.
• Common Ranks: Standard officer ranks apply, enlisted not so much. It's All There in The Manual.
• Complete Monster: Alexia is considered an in-universe example. Invoked
  • Captain Jarvis believes himself to be one, but at worst he is Necessarily Evil.
• Corrupt Church: The Assembly of Man, whose hat is Knight Templar.
• Costume Porn: You will find many long, multi-paragraph passages which linger lovingly on Ranma's various outfits -- not just her skimpy leather garb, but her Company uniforms, personal armor and even Senshi uniforms/gowns. Sometimes it seems like Ranma can't change outfits without five paragraphs on every detail of her new clothes.
• Crossover: Harry Dresden is pulled into this universe from his own.
• Cryptic Conversation: This is Murdoch's hat.
• Cute Little Fangs: At least when they aren't being used to crack your bones and strip out the marrow.
• Cute Monster Girl: Succubae in general, but especially Yuki.
• Dark Action Girl: DarkStar.
• Darker and Edgier: Very much so.
• Dark Is Not Evil: In early installments this is the case, but as the Black and Grey Morality becomes more evident it starts to look doubtful.
• Daydream Surprise: The funny and disturbing sequence where it looks like DarkStar has sold out the Senshi and given Usagi's head to the Russian Cyborg Mercs. Leading to a Crowning Moment of Funny when Ranma snaps back:

""Oh, just wondering how big that brain of yours is ... just thinking about how many explosives I could fit up there."".

• Deal with the Devil: DarkStar really seems to like this; she's made offers to the Russian Cyborgs, Mercury, and Usagi. Despite her being the protagonist, it's not really a subversion given she is a demon and what her offer will cost, especially in what Mercury would have had to pay.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Eve defrosts fast.
• Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: A wide variety, in addition to the expected "tailored for specific bad guys" and "sample platter of various materials" there are ones designed to retard regeneration and others that punch through Deflector Shields.
• Devil but No God: Played straight, until Russian cyborgs threaten to pierce the Veil.
  • "Which would be worse? An invasion from a place that could be described as Hell or one that could be described as Heaven?"
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: BlackSky can stay for dinner.
• Dirty Communists: Dirty Sexy Female Cyborg Mercenary Communists.
  • With added nuclear powered magical Soviet Superscience.
• Discount Lesbians: They're actually a One-Gender Race.
• The Dragon: Aurora to Alexia.
• Dream Sequence: Some rather disturbing ones.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Tuxedo Mask.
  • Also Artemis.
• Eighties Hair: As she gets more demonic, DarkStar's hair goes this way. And The Drake's oft mentioned Mullet.
• Eldritch Abomination: There are some pretty heavy hints that Sailor Pluto is an avatar of Yog Sothoth or something similar, with a possibly-sinister agenda of her own. Other abominations are believed to be eagerly waiting for a recurring dimensional collision set to happen any time now. Older demons are mentioned as being pretty eldritch too.
• Emergency Transformation: Initially to save Nariko's life, then made company policy in the D-Program (which is strictly voluntary given the potential side effects).
  • Program members have a special mark on their dog-tags. In the case of mortal-wounding it serves as consent.
  • And eventually dimensional visitor Harry Dresden -- yes, that Harry Dresden.
• Evil Costume Switch: Dark Mercury's costume and Venus's evil outfit.
• Evil Laugh: DarkStar's attempt at this is hampered by a missing lung. Good thing she can heal.
• Evil Makeover: Mercury and Venus.
• Exclusively Evil: Subverted, Inverted, Averted, and finally beaten up with a big stick.
• Extra-Strength Masquerade: And how. Entire battles between supernatural and supernatural-aware forces are fought within an hour's drive of (or even just within) Toronto, with no one outside of a small number of people even noticing.
  • Averted with Ranma's friends from school Naoko and Sam, who had figured out that Ranma and her daughters weren't normal humans, but couldn't decide on exactly what they were.
• Face Heel Turn: Aurora, Eclipse, Orion, Mercury, and Venus.
• "Failure to Save" Murder: DarkStar and Eve tell Usagi that because the bad guys attacked her, in her home, that she should be the one liable and responsible for the civilian casualties not the evil, murdering, Russian Cyborg mercs.
• Fantastic Arousal: Succubus horns are very Sensitive, it's also implied that their tails may act as a pseudo-inseminator. You may now wash your brain.
  • It gets worse, in battle, their tails extend writhing filaments. The phrase chainsaw: blender comes up. Decidedly not a Clean Cut.
• Fashion Victim Villain: In-Universe spoofing with Alexia, Aurora and Dark Mercury who are all soundly and mercilessly mocked by the heroes for their "evil" fashion sense (or lack thereof).
• Fate Worse Than Death: Being turned into a succubus, according to many, which is why it's a volunteer emergency procedure, rather than a universal one—the soldiers are free to judge for themselves which fate is worse, and choose accordingly.
• A Father to His Men: Colonel Edwards.
• Faux Symbolism: BlackSky is almost an English translation of Lilith (in one of the possible etymologies at least). It's even more telling when it's later translated into Latin Demonic: Altercaela. She also is the queen of succubae in their own little dimension of Hell -- which honestly isn't very hell-like at all.
• Fictional Document: Sylvia Succubus.
• First Law of Gender Bending: When it kicks in it marks the point where pretty much the last of any Original Flavor Ranma is abandoned.
  • If I were a male character in this series I'd be very worried indeed. Especially given the personality changes that seem to occur. Several mortally-wounded agents when given the choice have declined being turned, for just such a reason -- they might lose themselves, and there's no going back afterwards.
• Foe Yay: In addition to beating each other to hell, DarkStar shot Galina in the crotch repeatedly, has daydreams about fighting her again. It's suggested Galina for her part cut off DarkStar's tail (why else would a being that can heal even bother to bandage a minor wound) and seems to be obsessive to the point of scaring her "men".
• Fountain of Youth: Pluto gets hit with one of these leaving her younger than the rest of the Senshi, and also Nabiki who is turned into the youngest member of the brood.
• Friendly Neighbourhood Succubae: At first anyway.
• Friendly Sniper: Morgan, post Succubisation at least.
• Fuku Fic: A dark and twisted version.
• Fundamentally Female Cast: The Brood, The Senshi, and the Russian Cyborgs are all female.
• Funny Background Event: Throughout the animated Automobile Opening -- keep an eye out for ads for Azumanga Daioh on buses, and trucks from "A.S. Langley Transport" and "Baum Whirlwind Transport" as well as intriguing graffiti, among many other things.
• Gambit Pileup: Setsuna's, Murdoch's, The Company's, and several others including Queen Serenity (which is a good trick since she has been dead for millennia).
  • Murdoch eventually admits that he has no idea what's going on, and just occasionally drops cryptic hints to the involved parties that make it look like he caused the latest twist.
    • Murdoch's job seems to be to twist everyone else's schemes into a Gambit Pileup rather than to further a specific agenda. Fridge Brilliance? Maybe?
• Game Face: Horns, Wings, and Tails out, it's fightin' time.
• Gender Bender: and not limited to Ranma for a change.
• Germanic Depressives: Captain Jarvis is introduced as one of these, of course in this fic...
• Ghostapo/Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Part of Captain Jarvis' backstory is that his grandparents were involved in something along these lines.
• Good Bad Girl
• Good Guy Bar: The Red Turtle, or Protagonist's bar anyway.
• Good Is Not Nice: As Ranma rather forcibly reminds Usagi.
• Grey and Gray Morality: A set of True Companions are fighting an enemy where being tortured and eaten is the best you can hope for if you get captured, the alternative is much worse. To muddy things further, they and their enemies are both after the same thing. Which side are the good guys and which are the bad guys?
  • Answer: In many ways the Soviet Cyborg Mercenaries seem less murderous and manipulative than the Brood.
• Groin Attack: DarkStar repeatedly shoots an opponent in the crotch. In a training session Eve is referred to as punching Ranma somewhere that hurt women just as much as men.
• Group Hug: It's a Succubus thing.
• Gun Porn: Oh yeah. Somewhat literally in Fan Art too. (Warning, link is NSFW.)
• Guns Akimbo: Ukyo's preferred style.
  • Colonel Edwards also wears two sidearms, but we haven't seen him fight yet, despite his nicknames.
• H.P. Lovecraft: Part of the Backstory of The Masquerade involved the Company sending Lovecraft files to fictionalise.
• Hair Colors: Becoming a succubus almost guarantees a dye job, some pretty outlandish. In fact, the only characters so far to have escaped this fate are Eve and Nariko (though her eyes changed.). With that in mind, let's rock:
  • Ranma: Ranma's hair is red in succubus form, same as canon.
  • Nariko: keeps her black Asian tresses.
  • Akane: Goes from black to some bluish grey color.
  • Ukyo -- White-Haired Pretty Girl.
  • Misako: Orange. Combination of Blonde and Redhead. In other words, fitting
  • Yuki: Goes a light pastel blue.
  • Eve: Stays Blonde haired and blue eyed.
  • Morgan: Goes from brown to carrot top
  • Badass Moe Morrison—Green, yea.
  • Sophie: Changed to a normal black
  • Cecilia -- lavender
• Hand Cannon: The standard succubus pistol.
• Happily Married: Succubae are actually strictly monogamous, by their standards.
  • Subverted somewhat given their strong urges and empathic connections make it extremely easy for succubae to pair up.
  • Single-Target Sexuality anyone?
• Healing Factor: All the Succubae have one, but DarkStar's is at ridiculous Wolverine levels.
• Heel Face Revolving Door: Aurora and Eclipse.
• Heel Face Turn: Aurora, Eclipse, Ukyou, Yuki, and DarkStar in the original timeline.
• Hell-Bent for Leather: DarkStar's outfit.
• Heroic BSOD: Usagi after the battle in the toy store, complete with Shower of Angst. It's implied Ranma had one of these after being turned into a Succubus before the story starts.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Cecilia.
• Hotter and Sexier: a good portion of the cast are succubae. What did you expect, a convent?
• Horned Hairdo: In her Sailor Earth form Ranma has a literal one of these with Odango Hair braided over her horns.
• Horny Devils: Part of the basic premise.
• Horror Hunger: The succubi hunger for more than just sexual energy. They also hunger for flesh.
• Hufflepuff House: House Vespar. They were a rival clan of Succubae that teamed up with BlackSky and invaded Earth. After DarkStar (Terran royal that BlackSky had captured and turned) was killed they were destroyed when BlackSky betrayed them with to Serenity. Serenity herself invaded the earth and took it over, while BlackSky retreated and took over Vespher's homelands. At least that's how BlackSky tells it. No description given to Vesper than they act like Alexia. The whole minion thing and all.
• Humanoid Abomination: It looks like DarkStar is heading down this route, her Grandmother BlacksSky qualified for this trope several millennia ago. Arguably Sailor Pluto too.
• Humans Are Special: And the reason humans are special is because Humans Are the Real Monsters.
• I Call It "Vera": Misako calls it "Sasha".
• I Just Want to Be Loved: The trope behind Eve's choice to ask to become a Succubus.
• I'm a Humanitarian: As well as sex energy Succubae enjoy the other other other white meat.
  • Though if given a choice... Yuki: "Succubae are great. Amazing flavor and great nutrients and energy."
• In Spite of a Nail: The Alt-Ranma from the crossover chapter, not demonic, but still stuck in female form and a Fuku Fic Senshi (and due to be a mother too).
• Inhumanable Alien Rights: Non-humans have none.
  • Want to stop those military squads busting down your door at midnight and forcing you and your family into stress positions while they interrogate you, without a warrant? Hah, no chance you'll live where you are told (if they allow you live at all) and be subject to spot inspections (and possible execution on suspicion and nothing else) at any time.
  • Been Mind Raped, deprived of your property and forced into servitude? Well you'll be gunned down not rehabilitated.
  • Just new in town and committed no crime? Well an off-duty merc can arrange an execution squad for you while you are on the way to do the shopping.
• Invincible Hero: After defeating Alexia, DarkStar become this. Her superpowered attacks, Wolverine-esque healing factor, and shield of self-righteousness make any confrontation a foregone conclusion. Exception below.
• It Gets Easier: Hoooooo boy. The main character started off highly disturbed with her powers an rather adverse to killing, over time she changes to where she doesn't bat an eye at graphically killing and eating dozens of people.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Capt. Jarvis' job description is this trope.
• Just Desserts: basically the fate of any Big Bad dumb enough to get on DarkStar's bad side, most obviously Alexia.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Ranma/DarkStar. It seems to be pretty much the Hat of all the WIC staff too.
• Lime: Believe it or not it may have sex demons as central characters, but despite the insinuations and innuendos the story never gets as explicit as implies it has.
• Lady of War: Ironically, Nariko.
• Lap Pillow: Standard Succubus relaxation technique.
• Light Is Not Good: "heaven."
• The Little Detecto: Pattern scanners. Useful items that can not only detect sentient life, but can also discriminate between a human, a disembodied spirit, and a human infected with lycanthropy with no problem (as there's a specific pattern for each.) Not to mention more interesting yet easier to detect things like demons and sailor scouts. Used to give a "power reading" too, but that was abandoned after Ranma went over level 12 or so.
• Little Miss Badass: Yuki(Nabiki), who can pass for a middle-schooler despite her succubus sized chest, wields a pair of cam assisted folding knives oddly reminiscent of straight razors and can create an armor piercing thermobaric weapon with magic. She's about as Lawful Evil as Misako is Chaotic Evil.
• Living MacGuffin: Usagi.
• Loads and Loads of Characters.
• Loss of Identity: It seems being turned often leads to significant personality changes; this clearly happens to DarkStar, Misako, Eclipse and Yuki. Eclipse and Yuki actively try to recover their old personalities, with mixed success.
• Lovable Coward: Genma.
• Lovecraft Lite: The Stars are Right, but they can be stopped.
• Lovecraftian Superpower: At first Succubisation appears to involves just becoming a Badass Perky Goth, however as the story progresses and reveals more and more mutations it begins to look more like Body Horror with boobs.
  • And of course the less said about what happens to Minako the better...Squick.
• Lysistrata Gambit: More a Lysistrata punishment, Nariko punishes Akane this way for mistreating Nabiki.
• Mad Oracle: Shest, the Russian who can walk through walls, has a unique perspective on reality. She wields the Deep Diver system and may or may not know just how dangerous it really is.
• Magic Missile: Eclipse's shadows work like this.
• Mama Bear: Succubae's hat.
• Manipulative Bitch: Alexia, to a lesser degree Pluto, and eventually DarkStar herself.
• Mauve Shirt: Close examination reveals Mauve is the new Red.
• Meaningful Rename: Just about all of the main characters get one, examples will eventually be found on the characters page in order to avoid Spoilers.
• The Men in Black: All employees of the company (the first MIB we are introduced to in the series is Kasumi!).
• Military Brat: Just about all of Morrison's human family but her are active duty Marines
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: debatable. There are arguments for and against this due to the intricacies of being turned (for more see the discussion page). However there does seem to be something in this even in the best case scenario. Even if it is just a higher sex drive and less inhibitions.
• Mind Rape: Alexia's favourite recruitment tool.
• The Mole: Mercury and Orion.
• Mook Horror Show: The "heroes" are man-eating demons which have Emotion Bomb powers.
  • Played with, when an unregistered brood is attacked by Canadian Special Forces. Though the real Nightmare Fuel hits when DarkStar does arrive: "Please! Kill them now! Don't let Her get them."
• Morality Pet: The broodlings are this. Subverted in that their needs push Ranma away from human values and identity and towards those of a succubus brood mother.
  • Later Ranma is this to Javis. The ice queen defrosts but the Cold-Blooded Torture stays.
• More Dakka: Company policy.
• Ms. Fanservice: Ranma, or course, but also any other Succubus character, principally Eve.
• Muggles Do It Better: The Demons and Eldritch Abominations have all these fantastic powers, but Humans have inventiveness and are much better at being bastards.
  • Part of why in the eyes of a succubus humans are the ones bordering on Exclusively Evil.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Eve, Ranma's sister, is suspiciously quick at offering and or encouraging Ranma to just kill Usagi already.
• Mutilation Interrogation: Part of Capt. Jarvis' repertoire.
• Mutual Disadvantage: Ranma and Galina have the Mutual Invulnerability variant. Each has a different version: Healing Factor versus Made of Iron, but neither can permanently put the other down. Given the unbalanced power both have this leads rapidly to The Only One Allowed to Defeat You.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Happens after the first time Ranma caves to her Horror Hunger. It Gets Easier though.
• My Greatest Failure: Ranma considers hers to be abandoning and subsequent neglect/mistreatment of Nariko after her conversion.
• Naughty Tentacles: Well, naughty tails anyway. Use your imagination.
• Never a Self-Made Woman: Ukyo fills this unfortunately. She's first introduced as Ryoga's saner partner. Tags along as a Badass Normal on a couple zany adventures, gets mortally wounded, dons the blue shirt and now decides she's in love with the very same person she was introduced with. They become mates.
• NGO Superpower: The company.
• Noble Demon: Subverted. While DarkStar is demonic royalty, she doesn't fit the "noble demon" style: no qualms about killing or eating her enemies, doesn't try to prove she's evil. Related to the Exclusively Evil subversion.
  • BlackSky however, fits this to a T, even though she claims to be a Retired Monster.
  • Depends, she might be more Villain with Good Publicity. She's only popped up once.
• Non-Answer: When Ranma asks what gender Cecilia was as a human, she replies "My name was Casey"
• No Sense of Personal Space: Succubae seem to have No Sense of Personal Space when instigating interaction (including humans) especially within their brood, but when it is humans doing the instigating it is Hates Being Touched (except for the crying succubus All There in the Manual rule)
• No Loves Intersect: Succubae are actually strictly monogomous.
  • Granted they are sex demons with "many different kinds of sex." As far as relationships go, things are pretty stable.
• One-Gender Race: Succubae are all female. kinda
• Over and Under the Top: Ranma's brood is over, and Eve's brood is decidedly under.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Usagi and the Senshi; originally seen as desirable by the company as allies, key to staving off the Reality Collapse. Now they're seen in need of protecting and severe training in order to keep them alive until the Stars Are Right.
• Our Demons Are Different: While there's not much info on Pattern D's other than the succubae one can infer that the forces of hell are two parts Tanari (aside from the Exclusively Evil hat.), one part fallen angel, and one part Islamic djinn. Feeds a family of five.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Just reanimated corpses really.
  • Cyborgs and supposedly golems are stated to be "pattern V's" as well.
• Pardon My Klingon: "Submaternissima": When a broodmother mindrapes her spawn and turns them into cannon fodder. See, Alexia. Particularly damning in succubus society it's a sign of poor parenting. (the literal meaning is quite simply "worst mother EVAH!" The rest is just cultural baggage.)
  • Given their hats, Alexia is more of a Complete Monster by succubus standards than human.
• Perky Goth: Getting turned into a succubus seems to involve also turning into one of these, especially Yuki.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Despite being all of 5 foot nothing, DarkStar dominates any room or battlefield.
  • Ditto for Morgan and Yuki.
• Powered Armor/Mini-Mecha/Clingy Costume: Serenity gains what is best described as a suit of armour that mated with a battleship and Queen Victoria complete with Pimped-Out Dress, Shoulders of Doom, Voice of the Legion, Glowing Eyes of Doom, and Most Common Superpower (more like Gag Boobs). Just to add to the Mind Screw it's living armour made out of a liquid metal Minako.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Usagi and the Senshi are nerfed to the point of uselessness, Ranma (and every other character) are power boosted to the point even normal humans have combat super-powers.
• The Power of Love: This is explicitly stated to be the Succubae's other hat.
• The Power of Trust: Col. Edwards uses this to bring Ranma onboard, it pays off big time. A lesson Ranma learns to her benefit and one that Pluto doesn't to her cost.
• Prehensile Tail: The Succubae.
• Private Military Contractors: The company.
• Promotion to Parent: Ranma and Cecilia.
• Rape as Backstory: An attempted rape in high school -- and her response to it -- is what sets Kasumi Tendo on her path to becoming a WIC operative.
• Razor Floss: A succubus' tail can extend dozens of mono-filaments. Subverted a bit in that they writhe around, making a decidedly unclean cut.
• Red Shirt: Averted, Ranma takes the loss of even unnamed characters hard.
  • played straight, in that when an APC blows up we're quickly told the name of the now-dead driver.
• Renegade Russian: The Cyborg Mercenary Communists are this.
• Sacrificial Lion: Aram and his van.
• Schoolgirl Lesbians: In early chapters.
• She's Got Legs: Eve checking out her new body, it's Lampshaded how short her "regulation length" skirt looks because of this.
• Sinister Surveillance: That the company is capable of inflicting this on people is actually held as a virtue by the brood. Private secrets breed public problems, is the attitude.
• Sixth Ranger: The Original DarkStar and Sailor Orion.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The fic ping-pongs from one end to the other.
• Small Girl, Big Gun - Morgan and her rifle.
• Smug Snake: Murdoch, although the author clearly thinks he's a Magnificent Bastard, but he really isn't.
  • DarkStar herself rapidly becomes one in later chapters.
• Sniper Duel: in Chapter 21 with the introduction of the Russians.
• Spell My Name with a "The": The Drake.
• Stages of Monster Grief: The Company has skillfully guided Ranma all the way to the cusp of stage four (they may not realise how close she is to it though).
• Staking the Loved One: Done with a twist, Kasumi non-fatally shoots Akane specifically so that Nariko and Ranma will be able to give her an Emergency Transformation
• Stripperiffic: Initially, the Brood dresses this way. Somewhat subverted when after a few fights they start dressing with more sense.
  • The aversion is then subverted hard in the when Ranma fights Galina. She comes home perfectly healthy, if a little hungry, her armor however is all but gone. What's the point of wearing bulky armor when it's less Immune to Bullets than you are?
• Sufficiently Analyzed Magic/Post-Modern Magik: The Company is dedicated to both approaches.
• Super Registration Act: If you are a registered Non-Human and play nice you are fine, unregistered Non_Humans are fair game, The Company alternates between type 1 and type 3 (currently it's type 3 with Ranma and Eve's broods).
• Sword and Gun: Nariko's preferred loadout. Using an absurdly sharp, demon-metal katana and a 50-cal SSP (Standard Succubus Pistol).
• Take That: In-Universe example, Those Two Girls criticise the Senshi for flashy speeches, fan service outfits, themed powers, and so on.
• The Tease: Ranma likes pulling this on Usagi and Pluto in early chapters.
• Technicolor Eyes: Becoming a succubus almost guarantees an eye color change, some pretty outlandish. In fact, the only characters so far to have escaped this fate are Eve and Akane (though her hair changed). Also they all have Glowing Eyes of Doom which can lead to Eye Beams. With that in mind, let's rock (again):
  • Ranma: Ranma has Purple Eyes. It started out as a transformation effect but became more and more dominant, pushing out the original blue.
  • Nariko: A sign when big sister has been pushed too far.
  • Akane: Keeps her Brown Eyes
  • Ukyo: Orange
  • Misako: Fitting as she's a Green-Eyed Monster.
  • Yuki: Ice Blue Eyes and Curtains Match the Window
  • Eve: Stays Blonde haired and blue eyed.
  • Morgan: Goes from brown to Cold Sniper blue
  • Badass Moe Morrison—Green another case of Curtains Match the Window.
• Tempting Fate: When Agent Morrison wonders how he'd feel if he was turned into a Succubus, there are no prizes for guessing what happens in the next chapter. Also Nabiki says she isn't a real target, a rare slip for a normally Genre Savvy character.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: A tenet of WIC planning and operations, enthusiastically embraced by Ranma and her brood, even in non-military/non-lethal contexts:
  • Leveling a mountain to get rid of an enemy base.
  • Weapon design, especially Misako and Morgan's guns
  • Generally planning for anything. If it's worth doing, it's worth massively overdoing.

Two is one, one is none.

• Third Law of Gender Bending: Hammered into the ground with all the subtlety of a drunken elephant on a moped trying to navigate the East Kilbride traffic system. It's commented on (often humorously) too many times to count that Gender Bender Succubae are girlier than cis-female Succubae. One of Ranma's "daughters" even comments to the effect that "it seems like when they lose their penis, they get a makeup kit".
• Those Two Guys: Naoko and Sam, Sunshine's schoolfriends.
• Transplanted Character Fic: On the Ranma side. The Sailor Moon stuff is clearly the same characters, but the Ranma stuff would not be recognizable as such with a few changed names
  • The Sailor Moon half of the fic isn't much better. The characters might be mostly intact but the setting is much Darker and Edgier..
• Traumatic Haircut: Eve cuts off Usagi's Odango to make a point about...er, something. Or possibly just to be a Jerkass. It just came across as pointlessly mean.
• True Companions: Oh yeah.
• Unfazed Everyman: Naoko and Sam.
• Unstoppable Rage: what happens when you hurt one of Sunshine's kids.
• Unorthodox Reload: Nariko can reload her handgun by dropping the empty mag, slicing open a magazine carrier with her tail, slamming her gun onto the falling mag, and finally hitting the slide release. All this while engaging in a sword duel with her right hand.
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Ranma calls the Senshi (and to a lesser extent the company) on this one.
• Viral Transformation: One method of conversion.
• Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: In early chapters.
• Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere: And resistance is steadily faltering.
• Web Serial Novel
• What Have I Become?: Mostly absent, Ranma apparently did this before the start of the story but definitely present with Nabiki and Morrison, despite the latter having volunteered (apparently didn't think it through fully).
  • also present in Morgan, though it's harder to spot, since it's not about gender so much as becoming a demon, as well as her being quite possibly the most stoic of all in the two broods. Granted the author did devote a whole scene to her What Have I Become? moment.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Explored.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Ranma calls this on Usagi more than once.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Usagi.
• Winged Humanoid
• The Worf Effect: Ryouga is introduced as just slightly below Ranma's demonic power level and looks like he might be the Big Bad of the arc, naaaaaaah. it's just so he can be beaten up and converted by Alexia.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Being the big sister of the brood Nariko embodies this. Slightly subversion given her past and fighting style.