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

Gotta say, looking forward to the inevitable invasion of Equestria by Darkseid - or just a casual visit by him, which would amount to much the same thing.
 
3rd July 2012
20:13 GMT -7
The proportion of updates that revolve around the protagonist ranting about the perceived failings of fictional characters has decreased as the story has continued.
I would very much like to see it decrease further, as bashing remains the least enjoyable narrative.

Yeah, I can see where he's coming from.
He is coming from the same place Paul often comes from: "This thing has harmed what is Mine, therefore it is wrong and I shall correct it."
Grayven is just less self-aware about it than Paul.
 
"I suggest teaching her how to control the sun, since my understanding is that you're the only pony who can do that."

Yes, teach Sunset how to do your job. Her Cutie Mark is literally same as yours, and her name is SUNSET! It's what she was born to do, you stupid cake-eating laser horse!

♪Celestia, we love you♪
♪But you're such a basic bitch♪
♪The picture of regality, it's true♪
♪But girl, you're dumber than a sack of dicks♪
♪But it's ok, don't feel bitter♪
♪You're still the Best Princess♪
♪Other than your sister♪
 
Celestial vs Darkseid... My money's on the pony. I think sun magic trumps Omega Beams.
Celestia is the Princess of the Sun, who moonlights as the eternal ruler of Equestria. Darkseid is the New God of Tyranny. I think that Darkseid would probably have a conceptual advantage over Celestia, if he wanted to exert his nature over the country to influence the ponies. Besides, Celestia lost every serious fight she ever had in the show, other than the one against her sister, and that was only with the Elements of Harmony. She couldn't even beat the dream version of her herself turned evil without her sister's help.

Now Twilight, the Princess of Friendship, on the other hand, might stand a chance if she repudiates the idea of Darkseid's tyranny with the help of her friends (and possibly Discord), likely by rejecting her control freak tendencies, and emphasizing that they're their own people with their own desires and lives.
 
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Celestia is the Princess of the Sun, who moonlights as the eternal ruler of Equestria. Darkseid is the New God of Tyranny. I think that Darkseid would probably have a conceptual advantage over Celestia, if he wanted to exert his nature over the country to influence the ponies. Besides, Celestia lost every serious fight she ever had in the show, other than the one against her sister, and that was only with the Elements of Harmony. She couldn't even beat the dream version of her herself turned evil without her sister's help.

Now Twilight, the Princess of Friendship, on the other hand, might stand a chance if she repudiates the idea of Darkseid's tyranny with the help of her friends (and possibly Discord), likely by rejecting her control freak tendencies, and emphasizing that they're their own people with their own desires and lives.

Actually, the argument can be made that Darkseid is the God of Evil, not Tyranny. If Highfather represents all that is good, then Darkseid is the flipside (flipseid?) of that coin. This belief makes a lot more sense to me, and explains why Darkseid is so powerful. After all, "Darkseid is."



Now, I've never watched MLP, so I was basing my bet on some assumptions. I'll amend it to say that the Pony Force (you know, Celestia with her Elements friends, and probably the other ones, too) can take him.
 
Ok, how did you get the 'anti-' part from that sentence?



Not very well. Anti-Red rings can detect any angry person within sector-sized volume and ring blasts calm them down by default. You have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to actually use them since it has a very low anger threshold and automatically blasts the user when they cross it. They... weren't very popular to say the least.



Anything may happen here if you take popular Lantern characters as standard Lanterns. They keep jumping teams so often that it makes distinct lights pointless. They aren't the most Stubborn/Angry/Compassionate people in the Sector, they are simply individuals with the greatest potential to use the Glow. At least that how I like to square that circle.

Whelp, I read Red+ Inversion, and went Anti-red
 
"We met many interesting humans, and together we valiantly 'muddled through' the pedagogical parts of the event. We found considerable relief in seeing such experts as out of their depths as We often are, and think that We would like to attend future such events."

Oh hey, Jason Blood shows up in the Renegade timeline, however obliquely. I'm kind of interested in the Renegade getting more involved in demonic affairs and Hell, especially since Asmodel and Neron should still be illicitly collaborating.
 
since Asmodel and Neron should still be illicitly collaborating.

Wouldn't The First of the Fallen still be ruler of Hell? I'm not sure Renegade (or indeed anyone) can do anything about demonic affairs other than send them back in that timeline.

EDIT: Though it does raise the question of who might 'win' a throwdown between Darkseid and The First... not that they'd ever have a reason to be in conflict at any point.
 
Wouldn't The First of the Fallen still be ruler of Hell? I'm not sure Renegade (or indeed anyone) can do anything about demonic affairs other than send them back in that timeline.

EDIT: Though it does raise the question of who might 'win' a throwdown between Darkseid and The First... not that they'd ever have a reason to be in conflict at any point.

Renegade could summon the First and kill him with the blade.

As for who would win between Darkseid and the First, we'll it could go either way.

Though seeing as Darkseid wants to snuff out free will I'd say the First would be pretty pissed with that, seeing as he also has free will, so he may decide to get rid of Darkseid.
 
Renegade could summon the First and kill him with the blade.

That's certainly one possible outcome. Though we also saw in the Paragon playthrough that summons are basically like a phone call to which the demon may refuse to answer. It was a pretty special occasion (involving Constantine) that the First showed up at all in the Paragon save. Not sure he would bother answering a call from Renegade even if Renegade weren't planning to shank him immediately.
 
They got better.

Sunset actually evolved past the obsessive power fixation that literally demonized her in the first movie and they made amends after Sunset actually achieved the emotional maturity Celestia was hoping for her in the first place, shown in one of the later movies.

Unlike Renegade's Sunset, who as far as I can recall as done absolutely nothing to show she isn't one bad day from literal demonization.

The thing is in canon we don't get to see the relationship they had- the progression from loyal student to futitive- plus canon sunset basically lost her magic when she went to the human world, which probably made all of her issues worse.

But Celestia has mad a number of questionable decisions, which various fics have called her out on- sending Twilight and friends to save the crystal empire and calling it a test instead of having her or luna go to fight the most dangerous non alicorn pony ever, Getting fooled by Chrysalis' bad acting when after Shining armor who was brainwashed and Twilight who was suspicious. Celetia is a person with flaws and the main one is that she is so competant and smart that combined with litterally having more experience than any other pony, she is used to being right and treated as always being correct.

Basically between her age, talent, and position, noone calls her out on things, even Luna didn't- instead turning into Nightmare Moon and fighting her. Everything that lead to Sunset going rogue was Celestia's fault, its basically the same as Tai Lung and Shifu in kung fu panda, except Shifu wanted Tai lung to be the dragon warrior and messed up his head by pushing him until when Tai Lung was denied he lashed out. In Celestia's case it was more like she was a combo of Shifu and Oogway- training Sunset but keeping some things away with no explaination. Sunset went with it until she couldn't, buying into the whole always perfect image of Celestia, until given the chance for something similar, being told no, and never getting a real explaination, painting every past denial in the same light.

Sunset wasn't wrong to want what she wanted, and even canon shows that it is possible to become an alicorn, if not easily but in canon Celestia failed to get her worries across to her, and here the disfunctions of the relationship are made clear- Celestia had nothing to do with Sunset's emotional maturation. Though to be fair par of this is my bias because Twilight's own instability and how Celestia often feeds into it doesn't paint a good picture for her ability to guide and help people that way- as does the older case of her sister becoming an insane supervillian right under her nose, or even after they are back and together a late episode shows they still have a bad relationship of constantly misunderstanding and not seeming to appreciate each other.

This Sunset got the support and help she wanted, became an alicorn, and has done nothing wrong- outside the questionable activities Gravyen occasionally gets her into- and unlike with celestia she actually made friends because Grayven found people she could be peers with rather than the sort of telling her to get out of the lab and passive agressive prodding Celestia did with her

Actually, the argument can be made that Darkseid is the God of Evil, not Tyranny. If Highfather represents all that is good, then Darkseid is the flipside (flipseid?) of that coin. This belief makes a lot more sense to me, and explains why Darkseid is so powerful. After all, "Darkseid is."

Now, I've never watched MLP, so I was basing my bet on some assumptions. I'll amend it to say that the Pony Force (you know, Celestia with her Elements friends, and probably the other ones, too) can take him.

The video was long so I skipped around- but my take on it is that darkside and Highfather are the gods/embodiments of particular flavors of good and evil- Tyrany and Fatherly care- basically Good and Evil in positions of authority and leadership. Darkside is the best thing to Pure Evil in DC comics because he is evil that seeks to impose itself on everything- though with his pursuit of anti-life and his empowerment witih the Omega Force I could buy him growing beyond Tyranny into more general evil, but he is the new god of tyrany.

For the purposes of the original discussion, he probably stomps Celestia unless the nature of equestria nerfs him somehow- not impossible with the tree of harmony and how it may be tied to Equestria. If nothing else the Elements would probably be like holy water to a vampire for him.
 
That's certainly one possible outcome. Though we also saw in the Paragon playthrough that summons are basically like a phone call to which the demon may refuse to answer. It was a pretty special occasion (involving Constantine) that the First showed up at all in the Paragon save. Not sure he would bother answering a call from Renegade even if Renegade weren't planning to shank him immediately.

The renegade does know Constantine and has worked with him.
 
That's certainly one possible outcome. Though we also saw in the Paragon playthrough that summons are basically like a phone call to which the demon may refuse to answer. It was a pretty special occasion (involving Constantine) that the First showed up at all in the Paragon save. Not sure he would bother answering a call from Renegade even if Renegade weren't planning to shank him immediately.

Constantine is working in Circe's school, after all, and while I concede that the First is likely far more powerful than other foes he's faced, Renegade's managed to take down some pretty tough guys via planning and ambush (three or more Lords of Chaos and Starbreaker, though I'll admit I didn't especially care for how Starbreaker was defeated). I think between them (and the possible assistance of Circe and Zatara/Doctor Fate) they could work out a plan to lure Theo out.
I may have been incorrect in saying Neron was working with Asmodel, that might only have occurred in the Paragon timeline after the First was deposed, since I'd think that was too big a risk otherwise.

Ultimately I just really want to see Renegade take on or at least interact with Hell, so I enjoy speculating in that direction (and conquering demons will probably make him nostalgic for the straightforward conquering of the Sheeda).
 
Yeah, I can tell you that having an authority figure like how Celestia is portrayed here is not fun.
It is realistic though.

You can imagine someone in real life being this way. You may even have personal experience with one. Like how Umbridge comes of as even worse than Voldemort even though he has tortured and killed way more people than she ever did. Because of the two, Voldemort isn't the one where meeting a real life expy version is a realistic possibility.
 
It is realistic though.

You can imagine someone in real life being this way. You may even have personal experience with one. Like how Umbridge comes of as even worse than Voldemort even though he has tortured and killed way more people than she ever did. Because of the two, Voldemort isn't the one where meeting a real life expy version is a realistic possibility.

I do, I was speaking from experience.

A thousand years alone while filled with guilt is not fun.

I'm not sure what you mean...? If this is a defence of Celestia, it's a piss poor one.

Firstly, she is responsible, if not for her actions if she is so consumed by grief towards Luna, to recognise patterns of behaviour in herself and prevent others from suffering due to that. To do otherwise stinks of victim blaming. Secondly, if she was so affected by grief, why did she think it was wise to take on a student in the first place? And she's not even aware of how dependent Sunset was on her.*

Unless I've misunderstood you.

*I am basing this on what has been presented to me in story. I haven't watched MLP.
 
Unless I've misunderstood you.

*I am basing this on what has been presented to me in story. I haven't watched MLP.

To sum up.

Celestia is terrible with kids. She can be a okay teacher but not a parent and Sunset saw her as a parent.

Luna is very good with kids but has trouble dealing with adults.

This is canon to the show.

The biggest problem Celestia had with Sunset is that she focused on her objecive of saving Luna without looking at how Sunset was going with her life.

That's why her next student, Twilight Sparkle, already had a family.

And even so, look at Twilight Sparkle traumas in the show it takes her a long time to get over them.

Celestia just shouldn't be teaching kids if even she most successful student becomes a nervous wreck willing to brainwash ponies instead of failing her.

And yes that's something Twilight Sparkle did.
 
Back Seat (part 1)
Back Seat

4th July 2012
14:01 GMT -2


"…afraid that with the war kicking off, I'm not going to be available for team missions or training."

Kaldur nods. "I understand. Are you sure that you can spare the time to tell me in person?"

I give him a mildly reproachful look. "Ow, Kaldur. Ow."

He looks away. "That was not what I meant."

"Clarissi Dox wants me as a mobile reserve, so I can jump in if things start to go pear shaped. And since I can appear and disappear at will on our side of the front line and could get blocked on the Reach side, being on Earth is actually better than being on the Reach side. Besides."

We both look over to where officials from various Atlantean city states-. And Venturia, are monitoring the counting of the votes in the plebiscite.

"I really think this sort of thing should be monitored by all of the interested parties so that no one can argue about it later."

This is actually the first time I've seen Proconsul Ptra, heir presumptive of Venturia. Presumed by Poseidonis, and presumed very incorrectly. King Cyprian greeted her with the exact minimum amount of enthusiasm not to give direct insult, and hasn't said a word to her since. She seems somewhat morose. I suppose she'd rather assumed that returning the wayward city to her stepmother's control was something she'd do just by existing, and here she is being told not merely by her cousin but by… About ninety eight percent of the adult population of her 'home city' that she was dead wrong.

I'm empathetic, but… Actually, not sympathetic. This situation could easily have been avoided. If they hadn't wanted me to shoot the hawk, they shouldn't have left it there.

"Lord-. King Cyprian has been scrupulously honest in his dealings."

"Good show. I assume that there's been discussion on the Atlantean end about how to handle trade, and an official border? Because there's two ways this can go, and not planning for one of them wouldn't be very clever."

"There are… Several outlines. For the most part, Atlantean cities do not greatly concern themselves with unclaimed territory outside of the city limits."

"Right, but they were all Atlantean city states. If the United States built an underwater colony I imagine that exactly where the border was would be rather important."

"Though they will be a separate country politically, culturally Venturia is still Atlantean. We still have more in common with them than with America, so they do not arouse the same degree of concern."

"I don't really know Atlantean inter-city politics. How much is this shaking things up?"

"King Orin has been quite… Vocal, about not wanting to be blindsided like this again. He intends to tour all of the Atlantean city states and confer in person with their leaders."

I raise my eyebrows-.

"He made such a tour when he first succeeded to the throne, but usually such things are left to the members of the national senate to bring to his attention if a problem arises. Given what happened here, he believes that he needs to become more directly involved."

"He's right." Kaldur glances at me. "He wouldn't have let this lie if he'd known about it, would he?"

"He would not."

He sighs, and looks around the counting hall once more.

"How is the war progressing?"

"The first day went about as well as it could have. On the other hand, we always knew that the Reach response to an attack would be weak to begin with, and that if the Reach Empire was the size of this room, the bit we've taken off them would be about the size of-"

I reach up and pull a single hair out of my head, then hold it out.

"-my hair. We've literally shaved a hair's breadth off their territory."

"It has only been a day."

"I know. I just want to manage expectations."

Looks like the counting is drawing to a close. The last of the ballot slips are being tabulated, three people signing off on each batch to make finding out who was at fault for any irregularities a little easier. That was a bit of a sticking point, actually. Cyprian was fine with a ballot, but had a little trouble with the concept of a secret ballot. He thought it seemed inherently dishonest, and… Having thought about it, I can sort of see where he was coming from. King Orin -coming from America- naturally assumed that ballots would be cast in secret. But in the end, we came up with a registration system which they could both live with.

Senior functionaries confer briefly, then the fellow from Shayeris whom the competing parties compromised on to oversee the whole thing approaches the two kings. I don't hear what they say, but from the relief on King Cyprian's face and the slight strain on King Orin's I don't think there's been any sort of surprise. But they shake hands, and I suppose that's as much as we can really hope for.

"Is Cheshire participating in your war?"

"Jade is, yes. Killed her first Scarab Warrior yesterday."

"You told us that they were what the Reach used to counter Lanterns during their war with the Green Lantern Corps."

"Yes, but they didn't do that by letting the Green Lantern Corps ambush them one at a time. In the early stages of the war Green Lanterns who'd been properly briefed took out the Scarabs on bodyguard duty fairly easily. Now that they know we're coming for them I'm sure that the Reach will be redeploying their elite warriors. I imagine we'll see… Clone infiltrators with implanted scarabs on our supply worlds within a few weeks. Ambush packs on worlds we liberate who will only go active if they get an Orange Lantern or L.E.G.I.O.N. officer on their own. They'll learn the most effective weapons to use against us, and… It'll get harder. And we managed this hair by bringing pretty much the entire Corps to bear on a single narrow front."

"And you cannot replicate that."

"We can, but that would mean leaving a colossal volume of space without Lantern support." I shake my head. "It wasn't really what I wanted, but we're probably going to have to copy the Green Lantern training system; bring people to Maltus for basic training and then have a field-mentorship with a more experienced Lantern."

Well. Field mentorships, because sending out a single neophyte with a single veteran is asking for the veteran to get mobbed and the new Lantern to be left panicking and unable to do anything. I suggested squads of five to Dox, one actual veteran, two with some experience and two just out of basic. He responded that a fixed number just told our enemies how many they had to watch out for, and he's not wrong. Reach intelligence on us is as bad as we can make it, but they're really good at keeping track of what's happening in their own territory and sharing that information. Data compilation and utilisation is their greatest strength, which is why my next stop is Mars.

"Will you speak to our other friends while you are here?"

"Of course. I'm not going to leave long-term without saying anything. And I need to talk to M'gann about the situation on Mars anyway."

"Do you believe that there has been a new development?"

"I hope not, because I want to borrow a lot of Manhunters, in the same sort of way that I'm borrowing Venturia's wizards."

"They may be reluctant to involve themselves in a war with the Reach."

"Then I won't involve them in that. There are a lot of uses for networked telepaths, and they do rather owe me."
 
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