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

The calibre program with the fanfictiondownloader extension should do the trick.

 

I see Drusa is paying close attention to Allyn's process. Given that Grayven's forces are making use of this kind of technology, I can see her wanting to learn everything she can about it in order to fight it.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered to length

Something that you should be taking steps to correct, then. Perhaps next time you visit Minosyss, maybe.

To be fair, it is Apokaliptian technology. There could be some hidden factor that works to corrupt the user. Perhaps if they could study it, develop their own systems...

And it would certainly feel peculiar to those not accustomed to it, I bet. Kind of tangy, perhaps.

That may change over time. As you learn to use it better, to channel it more effectively, your soul will adjust to use it...

An accurate estimation. Given the things they do... I'm surprised more races aren't aligned against them. Presumably distance is a factor.

The Ophidian knows what lies in your soul. What you really want. But sometimes, it takes someone else asking what you want to understand yourself...

Focusing on your desires, focusing on your goals, your wants, that makes you stronger. But it doesn't necessarily make you better.

It's probably closer to being a demi-god. Your flesh is of the real, the mortal world. It's just that your soul has a little more oomph than regular people...

It is their job, after all.

And this... This promises to require some very creative thinking...

Admittedly, most people don't have the same mass behind their souls that a demigod does. That's why New God technology is so effective. It allows those without that metaphysical oomph to put what they do have to better use. It's basically a fulcrum, with their soul as the lever.

And if they are not, then it becomes a contest of strength, not of arms but of soul. Hence my occasional references to 'Narrative Combat' whenever a New God appears...

An interesting way to look at it. I wonder if that translates into his constructs consuming less energy when they collapse, then. The energy being released back into the universe, and flowing back into his Ring...

Ooh, that's a bit personal, isn't it?

Besides the common things like survival, comfort and entertainment?

...Because your desires are so weak that you draw such little Orange Light as to avoid contamination. That explains so much.

And thus most of her desires are sated without effort. And thus her issues are made clear.

Best not to get into that habit, Allyn. Not in the field, anyway...

I wonder if she's ever had that happen before?

Evidently not.

And it'll be fascinating to see what they build together.

She lives. But she does not live, if you know what I mean.

There's more to life than surviving, girl. That is why you're so poor a combatant.

Oh, my. [/takei] But honestly... That might work to make her better. Give her something to fight for, to want to keep safe. Not necessarily a lover...

...But a friend. Something more than 'someone I exist beside'. She's probably been caught up in just surviving so long, she's forgotten that feeling, if she ever knew it.

...And becoming aware of that absence is probably making her uncomfortable..

It's not going to be a matter of raw strength, I think. I foresee learning to align his desires with his goals will be what opens the way...

It probably even looks more real now. A good start.

And that's where the challenge will come in. How easy will it be, I wonder, for Allyn to manipulate magical materials?

So, Allyn has found a measure of focus now. A clearer desire that he can employ. And perhaps he can help Drusa find one as well. It's interesting how little interactions like this can shape the desires of an Orange Lantern. How simply talking about it with someone else can guide someone to redefine what they want, and how to get it...

---

This is the purest sort of war I can imagine, and I will not be found wanting.

 

She -> She's

 

A bit of Godspeech today.

Are you sure about that, Allyn? You might want to ask Marcus Cole his opinion on the matter.

 

Doesn't seem to, I downloaded the app, downloaded the story from the site, and it just shows the threadmarked pages, which is about 1/18 of the story, or less, god this thing is big.

Oh well, the html version of the story seems to be kept mostly up to date, it's missing the last seven months, so I hope it gets updated again soon, but that is still the vast majority of the story, and I was mostly looking for a way to reread this magnificently huge sucker on my kindle, it's better for my eyes, and my back.

 

Thank you, corrected.

life

Thank you, corrected.

 

Thank you, corrected.

 

I remember renegade once mentioning that it requires small animals being tortured for it to work.

They may not know that they exist, or about what they do.

The Reach could probably isolate their target species and prevent them from having contact with others so no info slips.

True, but he's not fully helpless even without his ring.

Granted, certain places and things aren't exactly safe even for a demigod, who may be resistant to conventional means of death unless they throw a lot of those means at him, but he may still need certain things.

For example, he may need air and his ring shutting down while he's in space would kill him.

 

That was either a joke or a possibility that the Renegade gives on how some Apokoliptian tech works. DeSaad is the kind of guy who would make tech like that just for kicks.

 

Kicks aimed at a blind puppy.

 

I was rereading the latest episode and found this error. That should say 'Then after the war, and before the ink is even dry on the treaty with the Guardians, they begin subverting their neighbours.'

Edit: Found another error, this time in the story only thread.

That should say 'so they didn't have'.

 

No, that's correct.

No, that's correct too. Not perfect grammar, maybe, but it says what it's supposed to.

 

And the kicking machine is made from severed kitty legs.

 

Hm, the construct's still not solid enough even after that?

 

Use Reader mode, then save each of the 49 pages as a pdf. Seems easy enough

 

So the New Genesis equivalent would require small animals being fed, pat, and cuddled?

 

Has this episode doubled the number of non-Paul viewpoints chapters? Tripled? (Counting Renegade and alternate universe SIs as Pauls.)

 

Oh, Athyns might make Drusa a better lantern. Interesting.

 

If you want an easy route for the majority of the story, there are links in the first post of this thread to collected versions of the story from various points, though not completely current. They get updated whenever people feel like sending something to Mr Zoat with an upload link it appears.

Spoiler: More options

I know this isn't exactly what you asked for but these will result in your getting the whole story even if not via the way you were asking about.

If you want to be fully up to date, you can then use FanFicFare to download the threadmarked posts from this thread to get the up to date version of this thread (Just paste https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/with-this-ring-young-justice-si-thread-fourteen.8938 into FanFicFare's 'Download from URLs' window. Then you have the whole story in two EPUBs with a certain amount of overlap. If you want to use Calibre's editor to edit the collected one you got from the uploaded version to remove what there is of Thread 14, you could then merge the two and get it all into one file using the Calibre 'EPUB merge' plugin. Maybe make copies first rather than working on the originals though in case you mess it up as downloading Thread 14 takes quite a while.

If you'd rather not download a file collected by someone else, I believe you can go to the index post of Thread 11 and use that as the source for the SpaceBattles era. You might need to adjust settings, but I know that FanFicFare has a setting which allows you to use the URL of an index post as the source of chapters/posts to download for pre-threadmark XenForo works. That said, you will end up with duplicate first episode chapters since both the Story Only and in thread threadmarks are in the index. Of course, you can always edit them out after if you want. Then you can use the thread addresses for Threads 12, 13, and 14, since all of those are threadmarked.

Now, I haven't looked at those uploaded versions, so I don't know whether they have all the listed fanart and fan omakes of the fic, but if there are things missing that you want, you can manually highlight all of the links for the ones you want in the index post and paste them into the 'Download from URLs' window. The plugin will convert them to URLs and download them, and you can then merge them into your EPUB if you wish. Note, if you want to be even more complete, you can look at the omake indexes from the previous threads, linked from the first post of this thread, or just by going to those threads, and add those too.

A note on load - I would advise if you do any of the more labour intensive options, keep a labelled list of the URLs in a text file before pasting them into FanFicFare in case it crashes or something partway through, especially if you're going through and being selective, and separate them in the list by which forum they link to. Also that way you can have everything pre-Thread 14 in one EPUB which you can then merge the Thread 14 (and In Praise of Eros if desired) EPUB whenever you update. I'd also advise only updating the Thread 14 EPUB infrequently and use a pretty long cooldown between files in settings because it's pretty time consuming and taxing on the server and you don't want to get your IP or FanFicFare to get blocked by site admins.

- That doesn't get the posts prior to Thread 14. It's actually 115 pages if you get the whole Story Only thread, which goes from the beginning. It's definitely more work than using Calibre, but it is doable. I'd recommend downloading them as HTML files and then importing into Calibre though as it allows for more customization and editing since the other problem with doing it that way is that you don't have chapter markers in your file, and with a story this long, navigation in an e-reader without them can be a pain, so if it were me, I'd put those in. The advantage of getting the story via the Story Only page is of course that it is the most up to date, since Mr Zoat can't apply changes to the in thread version of parts of the story, so if you're getting the text from those sources they might not match up completely.

Note, with all of these, if you want to preserve the text attributes for colour and/or transparency, you'll need to change some settings beforehand because by default, Calibre and FanFicFare strip a lot of that out. Of course, depending on your e-reader, there might not be a point - if it's a black and white reader, say. Likewise, make decisions about what you want them to do with Spoiler boxes and the text within them, and whether you want things to be in threadmark order or chronological order. Read up on the settings and do some testing on smaller sections (like on a completely different story with a short index page if you're going that route) rather than the whole thing to start out with because I believe that a whole run to download just Thread 14 takes several hours.

Best of luck!

 

More like a crippled puppy, its worse if you can see it coming but can't get out of the way.

 

to -> too

most -> must

 

Thank you, corrected.

 

Huh....the god stuff might be a leg up on forging rings and lanterns, if using it to make a soul/avarice powered sword works.

Really interesting to see the mechanics....and the side effects of the process, and from a very logical mind too. having some self actualization thoughts on her side in the build up that helps define why she's having issues with the process herself.

 

But do you mean lovers of the flesh, Drusa, or lovers of the heart? Because there's a very large gap between the two. And given what else we know about her... I don't think she's let anyone into her heart...

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

I didn't think so. That isn't much of a life to live...

Heh. He's probably not talking about what she's thinking about, but the timing is fortuitous.

You can't help but look for angles, can you? Seeking leverage to get people to do what you want...

...Drusa needs to stop looking at this like a transaction, or a strategic battle. Sadly, she seems to be stuck in survival mode...

Why do I get the feeling Sparta targetted such people for recruitment? Seeking the outcasts and the dissatisfied for her 'cause'...

Sparta's not actually dead. Shocked into catatonia last time we saw her, but alive...
Edit: Oh, wait, he meant his mother, not Sparta, huh? Whoops. Yeah, she's probably very dead by now...

A pity she feels nothing about that. It could have been a useful source of desires to fight for...

The joy of growing up in a time of turmoil, eh? Not fitting in with either the society from before, or what takes shape after...

Not bad. But what did it cost him to manage that?

Danger, Will Robinson, danger! In an altered state like this, anything could happen...

Well done, Drusa. Not looking to your own advantage. Or at least, not the way you started to there.

At least he's eager to please. That state probably makes it a lot easier to work with overloaded Lanterns. Pity most trigger it in battle.

Especially if those desires are currently 'destroy anything I feel is threatening to me.' Useful for a disposable weapon. Not so much for an elite soldier.

Let's just hope he hasn't done himself any permanent damage there. To his psyche, or his godly aspects...

And if he wakes up looking for his swords, one missing won't make him happy.

Interesting. Did the Orange Light overload alter the mechanics of the New God technology to channel Avarice more easily than Divinity?

Not surprising if he's working with mystical materials. But it could be a sign of something more harmful...

...Not something commonly done. Or easily. Interesting that she jumped to that idea.

And therein lies one of her difficulties, I see. But sometimes expending a resource can make you safer in the long run...

Probably like one or two percent. Just enough to operate, but not much else. A good idea in the wake of an Avarice overload like that.

Wonder if that would make it easier for his soul to recover the Orange Light expended or not... The weapon is designed to link to the soul, after all.

Eh, few people are particularly articulate after waking up like that. Bet he's got a hangover too...

So best not to try that again. Unless it's absolutely necessary for the process, in which case, it's an even worse idea.

In other words, without nearly killing yourself from exhaustion or spiritual draining...

Hmm. The results could be interesting, if others could learn the process needed. Orange Lanterns crafting their own special New God technology armour and weaponry would give them a strong advantage against Grayven's forces... But only if they can manage the process safely. On the other hand, what could a master Lantern like OL or Xalitan Xor manage with it? So many possibilities...

 

I've run into that problem before. AFAIK, the extension can't use an index post or just do everything, which would make things a lot easier.

There's another extension called EpubSplit, if you ever get the whole thing (or some other long fic) downloaded.

If you do use it, don't make my mistake. You don't have to manually select each individual chapter you want to include. Click on the first one, then Shift+Click on the last one, and it'll automatically select all the ones in between. You can also select additional individual chapters with Ctrl+Click, without deselecting any previously selected chapters.

Usefully, this also works on the main Calibre screen, where you select books.

Also, funny story. Calibre used to take forever to read my phone, which was irritating. Then I switched from the USB 2 port to the USB 3, and now it finishes in about a minute.

I spent most of a decade rolling my eyes when all I had to do was plug it in on the other side of my laptop.

 

Think she was recognizing that Allyn's mother was dead, not Sparta, given that's who he wished was available.

 

Noted, and edited to make it clearer...

 

Yeah, he mentioned that she was dead and that he felt her soul pass on.

 

I like this chapter a lot. Drusa has interesting kinds of character development potential to me.

Um, actually, it can use an index post, with some caveats. See: https://github.com/JimmXinu/FanFicFare/wiki/BaseXenForoForumAdapters
If the index post contains only links to posts on the same forum as it's located, it will work like a charm. If it links to multiple posts on multiple forums, it will only download the posts on the forum the index post is on, so you'll have to do the other forum's chapters separately. So for this story, if you were doing it that way you'd have to do it in four chunks, I think - Thread 11's index post, Thread 12's (or the first post on Thread 13, which is probably the better idea since there's some overlap otherwise), the second post on Thread 13, because Mr Zoat kindly split the index posts at the episode where the new thread started (Rampage, Ep 72), and then the index of Thread 14. Of course, you could also just download the threadmarked posts on 12, 13, and 14 and only use the index post for 11 since that's the only one that pre-dates threadmarks, and that way you avoid downloading both the Story Only and 'in thread' versions of the first chapters of each episode. You can manually remove them after, but this is less work.