With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

So, I'm slightly confused as to why being killed, again, would cause him to lose his enlightenment as he did not lose it when the Pigeon of war killed him and he ended up snaking it up in heaven.

But, If I'm reading right, this is because he doesn't have all his soul "stuff" due to how Gozzi saved him? Like, she made a new body, and not all of the him-him got inside of it.

Also, way to make yourself look good in front of your apprentice OL. Nothing makes someone want to learn from you quick like getting one shot right in front of them, and them having to save you.

 

Hey, even Ms. "I'm going to criticize or make snarky comments about your every decision" admitted that there really wasn't a way he could have come out of that cleanly. Gozzi's smart, she's not going to judge him for getting wasted by something even the smartest species in the universe didn't see coming.

 

On the other hand, the capability to survive(kinda) a qwa-matter explosion sounds like another tangible benefit of enlightenment.

 

When the pigeons killed him, they took his soul to heaven manually and we the readers followed it there, it and he were all there the whole time. This time, we aren't following the soul, or at least not the whole soul. We're following a replacement body.

 

Hey, I gotta take the chances to tease OL when they come.

What's it called over there? "Taking the piss"?

 

Would you accept it taking two episodes but he learns to duplicate the process of Enlightenment for others in the process?

I would. And it seems plausible, since a lot of fascinated Controllers will be watching the transition avidly.

 

Is this going to become another reoccurring theme for Paul? Before he would undergo a number of Mushroom Mumbo's either of his own accord or an enemy trying to mentally subjugate him, now he's dying or losing his entire body, and chances are he'll pull through all the better. Which will definitely make the enemy more hesitant or desperate, motivate his recruits to be better if they want even a inkling of what he can do, and neutral planets/organizations more likely side with the OLC or Legion since one of it's leaders and founding member seems nearly all powerful.

Plus I can't help but imagine that once he's got a whole group of lantern recruits trying to reach their own form of enlightenment he's with them and the Ophidian is either a giant or regularly sized serpent curled up on Paul's shoulders, and occasionally speaks up to tell them what she likes/desires most of her agent while experiencing their desires.

 

'Enlightenment' means 'going through spiritual processes which change the shape of your soul'. If your soul gets damaged, you don't keep the benefits. It's like knowing everything there is to know about nuclear physics; you don't keep it after someone shoves an icepick through your brain.

I added this because it's a bit hard to have the SI be meaningfully impaired. Normally if you're in a fight then even if you win you're coming away with bruises at the very least. Get in a lot of fights in series and you'll have a darn sight more than that. But a moderately competent Orange Lantern doesn't have to worry about physical injuries, and the SI is a good deal more than that. Normally, I show losses or partial/imperfect successes by having things the SI is doing or people he's working with harmed or destroyed. But I also want to show that the Reach are capable of pulling out surprises and hurting or (in theory) killing him. We know from a metanarrative point of view that the SI isn't going to die, but in-universe only his skill is preventing that.

 

One doesn’t need to be ‘enlightened’ to be a Powerful Lantern though, from what I’ve been able to tell, Enlightenment here? Wrecks your emotional balance, great for being a lantern but not so much for being human. Guy’s an exception for the exact same reason that The Guardians picked the Green Light of Will, it’s at the center, the most stable and least harmful of the emotional spectrum, while Avarice is on the farther end, arguably second only to Rage.

 

True, though it does weaken him significantly, and seeing as they're fighting a war with a powerful enemy, he may not be able to afford that weakness.

 

loathe

comma instead of semicolon

It took me a moment to realize you meant Hollow Knight, because it's a little bit hard to define the "middle" of the game for WTR given just how much content there is and how many ways there are to progress.

 

Thank you, corrected.

 

It was.

 

*queues up Walk by the Foo Fighters*

Let's get this whole rehab arc underway, then! Maybe we get more info on the cool esoteric orange light things like the Honden while we're at it!

 

You missed the part where he lost part of his soul then I take it?

 

Yeah. It seemed like because he was trying to step into the Honden as he got vaporized that a chunk of his soul get pulled into the Honden but some of it got left behind.

So unless I misread things, his soul was basically shredded and he's trying to put it back together with orange duct tape.

 

Was...was that a Dresden Files Reference?

 

You fixed your mistake fast, but I still recovered it for posterity: https://i.imgur.com/5gAfXPf.png

 

You might be right that I'm jumping to conclusions. It's not a nerfed arc unless the characters abilities are greatly restricted or taken away so the next chapter will decide

 

As a matter of fact it was.

Next time an enemy arises from the sea I'll be recommending Welcome to the Jungle, too.

 

'Does'

She is best girl.

Pretty much.

'anything, she'

Well one of them, Despair, may be that after the other one died.

The bitchhole, as Paul once called them.

Involved a lot of death.

'home, so he wasn't'

'we first met'

 

The title for this chapter should be Anti Thesis part one instead of Back Door part 22.

 

"So Gods are made by people, usually incorporating certain spiritual aspects of life, and there are things that are to gods what we are to bacteria and above all that, too big to care, is the Source"

"I don't think I beleive in that Illustres"

"Oh that doesn't matter Ragnar, as long as they believe in you"

 

ITYM for posterior, given that you just did it to be a pain in the arse

 

Oof. That should be 'recognize' unless that's a regional thing, 'ring-duelist' unless the same thing, and 'when we first met' on the last one.

Instead of this.

 

Paul is just infuriating to fight lmfao. Even when you kill him he's not dead.

 

You know... I think Zoat has forgotten that under his own rules magic shouldn't work in space...

 

No mention of the Leentniar, or have they quit the system to proceed to their new digs? Though I honestly doubt they want to stay anywhere near a place that had what happened occur. That's a religious experience for some races...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

No, but some members do have a habit of not staying dead...

A proper Fighter. Caring only for the foe in front of him, and letting lesser men handle the strategy and logistics of war...

Is that such a shock? Aren't there plenty of cultures have women tend to the dead? Effectively seeing them out of the world as they saw them in, if you will...

Ah, how to explain the concept of a psychopomp? Presumably Ragnar's not that well-read...

Oh, where to even start? Although The Endless do have some measure of presence in many pantheons. Dream was known as Oneiros or the Oneiromancer in mythic Greece, after all.

Fairly logical, though Ragnar might be a little surprised by using the corpse of an ancient entity as a land of the dead...

In no particular order: Death, Destiny, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair and Delirium (formerly Delight.) Strange and wondrous folk all round, but not to be crossed.

Oh, hey, he finally remembered clearly!

Is Ragnar going to have to catch you with a construct environmental field? Remember, you can't lose focus on Avarice now without consequences...

Good to see he remembers that too. Ah, the heavy lifting Enlightenment did for him...

And it's best to keep it that way. Desire is the most mercurial of all the Endless, after all. Such is the nature of one who embodies Passion in many forms...

Though their tales probably focus more on the battlefield sense of helping. One army fighting a losing battle when an ally arrives, crushes the foe, but when the first form up to greet them as friends, they're attacked in turn?

Understandable, really. Few people consider the consequences of their actions. Not the simple ones they think will have no consequences, especially...

No doubt Kalmin's seen plenty of Qwa-matter explosions before... From a very safe distance, of course. He may be warlike, but he's no fool.

Bah, teenagers.You want those who give no thought to consequences? Prime example, folks.

Well, at least he's honest about it.

Less one-on-one honour, more mass destruction, than you expected?

Ah, if only you could see the galaxy of Warhammer 40,000. That is a prime example of total war. Where millions of Men can be fed into a meat grinder of a battle for the sake of a delaying action. Where the average weapon can tear a common soldier limb from limb, reduce them to less than ash, or leave them writhing in endless agony...

Oh, let me guess...

Of course he is. At least the Reach understand that if there's no body, they're probably not dead...

Sounds perfect for Ragnar. Plenty of Righteous Face-Punching of foolish Qwardian sellouts.

Oh, Ragnar is just a peach... Interesting ship name. Reference to some law of magic, or an in-joke for a Maltusian bureaucrat?

Actual likelihood of this working, folks?

Well, looks like OL is wasting no time trying to get the rest of his soul untangled from the Honden. Let's hope he can do it quickly, before the Reach inevitably show up. One of the most annoying kind of mission, right behind NPC Escorts: Defend an NPC during a ritual or procedure...

 

Or the Reach wiped them out.

And Morpheus.

Don't forget Delirium, and I guess pre character development Dream.

Magic dice roll says maybe.