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

Yeah, "...traditions weren't up to much,..." would probably read better here.

 

It's possible that there weren't, actually. If the actual magic aspect was pretty minor it might have just been some single shared common element between the different traditions.


edit: Also, this is DC. I wouldn't put it past them to canonically steamroll over all of that and mash up everything into a single vague Native-American-Y tradition.

 

I would really like to hear what the wider populace thinks about the Afterlife and Gods now. These little talks are great, but hardly representative.

I bet there are already agencies advising you on "what god is right for you?" or buzzfeed articles "10 afterlife versions we now know exist. Number 4 will shock you!"

 

Quite the squad make-up. An Atlanean mage, a russian super-soldier, a tech genius, a fallen-angel hybrid and OL. I don't know which of them is weirdest.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

At least most of the team are reasonably well-adjusted. No emo instincts.

Ooh, ooh, I know: Hope Corgi!

I'm sure it seems like a good idea at the time, though. Depression and other triggers aren't logical or sensible.

Man has a point.

As they saw with OL's little adventure over Christmas.

They aren't even pronounced the same! Nigh-key, the sneakers and Nee-kay, the Goddess. Bet that torques her off no end.

I assume he didn't correct her pronounciation for the laughs?

Better than some religions. (not naming any names, Noriel.)

Pointing out the inconsistency, I expect?

Fascinating. I suppose it's because of The FIrst of the Fallen's influence on Hell as it formed around him.

Though Hades might be a bit busy with an influx of fresh alien souls...

One quick trip to her temple on Themyscira...

Which Word of Zoat has confirmed.

So, the Magic Indian trope could actually have happened here? Whatever indigenous heroes ran around in the Wild West days might actually have had shamanic powers. Hilarious. Wrong region for Manitou Raven, isn't it?

Good of her to consider that possibility, at least.

And back she slides. Two steps forwards, one step back...

Still not completely intergrated yet, eh?

Hoo boy. Estimated time to explosion: 15 minutes.

Ah, walk-and-talk scenes. One of Mr Zoat's specialities, and always entertaining for the interplay. Now, to see what gets dug up...

 

For saying that her soul is worth more than nothing.

The SI's experience there is very much an outlier.

Yes, but not particularly good ones.

 

Is anyone else surprisingly interested in this arc? New characters and character interactions, discussion of long term ramifications of previous arcs...

Paul’s cyborg-raptor minions for the war games

 

If people could do tours of afterlives before they died things would be much better I think.

 

Because no one cares about Grayven.

Alright, to be more specific, I don't care about Grayven in the slightest. He's the interludes that get in the way of an interesting story. OL will be in the middle of something enjoyable, and then we have a shot or three of Grayven jerking off, or talking to his growing orphanage of characters I dont' give a shit about. Just a while back we had Grayven having some mini debate with Proto-Anarky.

Big whoop.

Beyond that, if the set up is Para-Paul in conflict, mock or not, with the Justice league (Something that's been teased and talked about since arc one basically), then the pay off god damn well better be Para-Paul vs The Justice league.


Not Freaky friday fuckery with no one's favorite now gray dumbass who has NO history with OL's world, conflicts, interpersonal relationships, or anything else.

To try and explain it in pop terms everyone might get, it's like if you watched the original Star Wars trilogy. You waited a long time for Luke to square off against Vader. Father vs Son, on top of everything else going on. How is this going to go? Luke barely survived last time, and only because Vader didn't want to kill him.

But suddenly, time/space fuckery occurs and the Green Ranger from Power Rangers swaps places with Luke and they throw down.

Now, at least one person in the audience is going to go "Wow! That's awesome!"

Others, who were really into the moment, and really looking forward to watching it play out, are going to go "You Ruined it. You fucked the entire thing up, you stupid fucking fuckers."

 

Okay yeah but which green power ranger?

OG Tommy from mighty morphin’ fighting Vader would kick ass, symbolism be damned

 

I'm sure something is going to happen here, unless Zoat is deliberately setting that Chekhov brand gun in the living room to be left unfired, but dammit all I can't wait for Paul to play OpFor against the League!

"Not going to bind or banish you, old ghost. Just going to kick your ass up between your ears."

One of my favorite lines of all time, right there.

 

I keep thinking Pennywise. I know it's Sheeda, but I keep coming back to Pennywise.

 

Didn't a native alchemist create his own kind of speed formula for Max Mercury? The way people talked about the significance of the Danner Formula, this seems like its actually implies a either very developed magic system or at least a very skilled magician among the tribe that gave him the potion.

 

Yeah... but Grayven’s still popular. Some people are interested in him (though fewer than with OL). I mean sure, it’s a different story not everyone followed all the way through, but it’s still a quality story, that ties in nicely with this story. While a swap might not be the best idea, it could work. Be a bit more interesting if they didn’t swap with each other though, but with the other versions of themselves from the short snippets instead.

Wouldn’t Paul see Sheeda emotions, if they were on people’s necks? Wouldn’t there be an additional amount of black? I don’t think this is likely to be them.

Also, I’d assume that Nike would be fairly powerful since at least the World Wars - what with the Olympics sort of traditionally being her festival, and all the talk about praying for / to Victory during announcements? And I think I’ve seen poems where praying to Nike is mentioned.

 

Could be he was just experimenting, or could be it’s the same type of boost Captain Marvel / that Hindi speedster (in India I think?) has - where a god grants their power (speed in this case) to a follower / champion.

 

OK, first the perspective "I don't like Grayven, therefore, everyone hates him" is probably a little inflated while not as popular as paul I'd say his he entertains a sizable minority of the sub. Stars crossed and the arc with the Justice lords probably had something to do with that.

And no it'd be more like if Han solo or Leia fought Vader instead of luke not if the green power ranger came out of nowhere, which while not the 'main' teased ending could still have worked (although would have been difficult).

Personally I'd just find it hilarious.
Now excuse me I have an update to read.

 

I think it’s likely a majority of the sub.

 

Yes, but I was trying not to deliberately annoy Max.

 

Scientology? Pastafarianism? Discordianism?
Is it possible to become an immortal divine by reaching enlightenment, as in some Eastern religions? Is this a guide to UNLIMITED POWA?

 

We need a poll! But I have no doubt that such a poll will be so unreliable as to be useless!

The great tragedy of statistics, that.

 

If only Disney could hear you now.

You are dead to me.

It's not Pennywise.

I read a quality Avatar fanfic where Ozai was killed by Sokka.

It made sense from Sokka's point of view.

 

If the Russians (Looking at Olympics Doping several years ago) could get a quantifiable boost in the Olympics by sacrificing to / praying to Nike, they would do it en masse. In the hypothetical world where magic was real, we would be having “praying scandals”, and Russia would be attempting to compete with people who are actually speedsters, but trying to look like they’re not.

And now I feel like my brain has gone on a weird, potentially rule-8-able offshoot. Will delete comment if this does violate it.

 

With this kind of situation, the singular is probably actually more correct in reference to the situation. They're referring to what is probably a singular tribe in their current area.

 

Dunno; it's quite possible that all the mages were already dead by then. Smallpox and the other latent plagues that all crossed over at the same time from that seething pile of rot that was Age of Sail Europe probably killed something like 90% of all native Americans.

 

'No one' is a really big pair of words, given the number of people, increasing, who have been saying Grayven has become more interesting than Paul.

 

Personally I'm also against Paragon and Renegade swapping, mostly because I, and a lot of people like me, don't really read the Renegade segments, partially because I don't really have the time to go back to the beginning and parse through the time when Renegade was just an occasional interlude/omake and not a separate character altogether and partially because I struggle to remember a lot of the names, relationships and events from Paragons side without having to throw in all of Renegades as well. I'd also argue that it is a majority of people that don't read the Renegade segments based purely on the fact that it seems like the average Renegade update gets less likes than the average Paragon update, if not usually by a significant margin

I think the best analogy I can think of to describe it is it's like if you were reading a new Batman storyline and you're really hyped to see Batman confront the Joker or whoever but in the last issue Superman comes in and beats him instead, but you haven't been reading the Superman comics, you barely know who he is, you don't know any of his stories or his relationships with the other characters

Yes the people invested in both storylines will be excited but the just as large, if not larger, group of people that were just reading the Batman story are going to be pissed that they were denied a cool confrontation for a character that they have no investment in

 

'will'?

I do like Grayven, but, I tend to take a pretty neutral (or non-exclusive) posture on the 'best' character in stories...

I do wonder if the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists as a god in the DC setting...

 

I'm sure that didn't help, but according to Freedom Fighters, the problem was that the shamans of the New World had been weakened by just having a Crisis Crossover when the Europeans showed up to ruin the neighborhood.

Four immensely powerful shamans, apparently having used wisdom as their dump stat, bargained with four elemental demonic entities for immortality.

Which the elemental demons granted by possessing the four shamans, so the bat signal went out to deal with four immortals that combined the powers of shamans and demons.

They eventually managed to bury them alive.

Fortunately for DC USA, the immortality deal apparently didn't cover being blown to thin red paste by the Human Bomb.

Or maybe it does, but the options of thin red paste are limited.

 

Right? Clearly Tommy under Ritas spell was a terrible idea. No, the answer is clearly OG White Ranger.

I know that. I know it'd be stupid to put him in here. My mind just keeps coming back to it though as stupid as it is.

 

I'd argue that that's less of a sign of a growing majority and more a sign of a vocal minority, after all what do the people that prefer Paul to Grayven have to complain about?

Even if an update is a Grayven focused one there's a good chance that it's a one off and if not fine, we had the last three storylines and will probably have the next three as well, whereas those who prefer Grayven know that if an update is Paul focused there's a good chance they could have to wait weeks before they get a Grayven one, and even then it could be a one off

 

If it's not a significant margin, then it indicates that only some people don't read Renegade segments, not majority of them.

I'd also like to say that I prefer Grayven more, though I'm not sure about swapping myself. We've already seen him play a role of alien warlord out to conquer Earth, after all. So even though I consider Stars, Crossed the best episode of the fic, I don't really want a redux version.