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

[Mr Zoat]

It's spelled Party Pooper, in past updates, I think.

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I... Don't think it was, but if you can point out an instance of it then I'll correct it.

 

[Vaermina]

"I have in my employ a species who can copy knowledge from one mind to another. If you can grab a few legal experts we can sort that out in a few hours."

"We see."

"Assuming that you want to?"

She stares at me for a moment, then smiles.

"Yes, Grayven. We want to very much."

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Luna having to deal with the insanity of DC Earth for even a day will be hilarious.

I really hope we get to see it.

 

[doug89]

It's spelled Party Pooper, in past updates, I think.

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It definitely is not.

I... Don't think it was, but if you can point out an instance of it then I'll correct it.

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I checked for you. "Party Popper" has been said 18 times, "Pooper" zero times. It was fairly easy to just open the last page of the story only thread and do a Ctrl+F.

Edit: Just checked the email notifications. Also "Popper" not "Pooper" there, so it's unlikely it was edited out.

 

[Stsword]

Yeah, you're right, that does make sense. But then, how did the equation come into existence?

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Zoat seems to be basically using the classic representation, in which the anti-life equation is just math, built into the universe the same way Pi is.

The fact that the ale gives superpowers? It's DC, so does figuring out the theory of everything- Blackstarr, Jew adopted by Nazis gained power over gravity, electromagnetism, strong, and weak forces as a reward for topping Einstein.

Later interpretations have made the Anti-Life Equation the Dark Side of the Source, broken off when the Old Gods attacked the Source, cutting it into twain, separating Light from Dark.

Post flashpoint so Zoat is rather unlikely to use it, the anti-life equation is the life equation of the anti-matter universe, the mathematical thesis of a universe of darkness.

 

[Darko]

Speaking of nightmares what is the Corinthian doing right now?
Was he destroyed by Dream and replaced with a newer model and now going on his road trip with Matthew?

 

[Lazurman]

This is very wholesome. Heh. Grayven is well on his way to becoming Luna's consort, if this unreserved friendship based on trust and support I see building between them keeps up.

...Fuck, I think I've become a brony. Is this how it starts?

 

[Mr Zoat]

This is very wholesome. Heh. Grayven is well on his way to becoming Luna's consort, if this unreserved friendship based on trust and support I see building between them keeps up.

...Fuck, I think I've become a brony. Is this how it starts?

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Well...

 

[Prognostic Hannya]

This is very wholesome. Heh. Grayven is well on his way to becoming Luna's consort, if this unreserved friendship based on trust and support I see building between them keeps up.

...Fuck, I think I've become a brony. Is this how it starts?

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This fic is itself like an Orange power ring. It gives you everything you want in a superhero fanfic, but it turns you into a rampaging brony

 

[Handlewithcare]

The main problem with Luna is of course that she was gone a thousand years and Eqestria seemingly suffered no issues from this.

Celestia handled the moon, nightmares seemingly were no trouble. The only explanation would be if Nightmare Moon did these things as well, to prove she was a good ruler, but that is never shown.

One could argue that another Alicorn to help defend Eqestria would be valuable...if both sunbutt and moonbutt hadn't proven over and over again how useless they are.

And the fact that she is nocturnal doesn't help matters either.

 

[King of Frost]

Considering a number of their cities seem to be based on Earth's it's unlikely there isn't at least one city which could earn the name "The city that never sleeps."

Get enough people/ponies together in one place and it becomes extremely convenient to have someone working a night shift. Unless the entire species is magically incapable of staying up at night which seems odd considering they control pretty much all aspects of nature.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

Equestrian Guise

Morning
Equestria

"Do.. you..?"

Luna looks away for a moment. We're sitting in her drawing room, the blues and purples not really being displayed to their best in the brilliant sunlight streaming through the windows. Party Popper came with us, then dashed off with a gasp when she realised that she still had to prepare Sunset's Ascension Party.

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Heh, that's one pony (of many, now) who takes her job very seriously.

Spoiler: Commentary spoilered for length

"Yes?"

She shuffles slightly on her… Fainting couch thing? Chaise lounge? I've been a pony for less than a day and I already know that lying down or standing are both more comfortable than sitting. Our body structures aren't really designed for it, which has a knock-on effect to how ponies pose in social situations. Luna found a solid-looking couch for me to lie on, and so far it's bearing the burden of my considerable weight well.

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Yeah, only a few weirdo ponies sit upright. Like Lyra. And equine physiology is very limited in postures and resting positions.

"You mentioned that you found Us-."

Not a fluke, then.

"I'm a 'you' now?"

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Don't take it as a sign of romantic interest, Grayven...

"We gained some comprehension of your society when We were studying your dream. You are the son of your people's ruler. 'tis improper to refer to you as Our social inferior."

I look down. "No. Well. At this point I think that I'm informally adopted or something, but as I said: I'm not actually… The original Grayven; the man most people think I am."

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But Darkseid declared you Suzerain of Earth. That alone legitimises you. As for accepting you as his son, He clearly wanted to give the other Grayven a good kick in the arse concerning his role.

"And hast Darkseid granted you no lands or titles?"

"Okay… Yes, he granted me a fairly grand-sounding title, and he publically calls me 'son', it's just… You're the only person I've told this to. I haven't even told my children."

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Good. A secret is best kept by only one. The more who know, the more who can reveal it, accidentally or otherwise. Bad enough the Father Box knew it, even partly.

She nods.

"Verily, a disguise which exists in only one direction would in truth be of little value. We cannot offer you pardon for your deception, and We can understand why you maintain it. What plans have you made for its undoing?"

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In other words: "What will you do when the shit hits the fan and you get outed?"

"Once Darkseid isn't a problem anymore I'll just confess to the whole thing. I doubt that my children will care much, and everyone else…" I try to wing-shrug but I mostly just get a twitch. "Sorry, I interrupted you; you were saying?"

"Do you truly find Us… Appealing?"

"I wanted to cuddle you the moment I saw you."

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Wilsonian Ponies are basically built to be cuteness personified...

Her wings twitch again.

"Our world-."

"I call it 'Wilson'."

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And Luna goes "Wat."

She frowns. "For what reason?"

"Sunset told me that this planet didn't have a name, just the individual nations. I picked 'Wilson' pretty much at random, which seems to me to be as fair a way to do it as any."

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Heh, remaining true to that long-lost video.

"Very well; our world of Wilson hath many intelligent species 'pon it, but… Intimate relations between them are usually limited to those which hath similar morphologies. You are naturally a balding bipedal. We are.. curious.. as to… What it is..?"

"Why I find a fur-covered quadruped appealing?" She nods. "It's not.. exactly.. erotic appeal. I… My original species was 'human', and while we're savannah-adapted apes, our distant ancestors were a lot hairier than us. And ponies have proportionally larger eyes than we do, in a way which.. in our species, is something our babies have. So some instinctual part of me is designed to find that combination of features appealing. But.. on a level with a rose bush in full bloom, or a willow tree gracefully arcing into a pond. While I find you physically appealing, it's not necessarily sexual."

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"Think... Think 'cute' like a puppy or a kitten."

"Were you lying about your…" She raises her eyebrows. "Pride?"

"No, that was a response to your behaviour. When I became a New God, some of my attitudes to certain things… Changed. I'm a lot more cerebral in my arousal these days. You're… My type. But I don't want to.. press my suit in a way which would make you uncomfortable. I do like you as an individual as well."

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And morphologies are easily adjusted. Why, they have a mirror perfectly equipped to do so.

"We see." She nods again. "How do you intend to follow through on your offer to aid Us?"

"Okay, you're a thousand years out of date. What sort of lessons did Celestia arrange have set up for you when you returned?"

"Lessons?"

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...Celestia did make sure Luna was brought up to speed on modern culture, law, and so forth, didn't she?

"Yes." I nod. "You know, to start learning about all of the cultural and legal changes that have happened over the last thousand years so that you can carry out your duties as diarch from a position of knowledge?"

"Before your arrival last night I spent my time rearranging the curtains."

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<Double-Picard> Oh, gods-damn it, sun-butt... You had one job... Please tell me Grayven tells her off when she shows her sparkly hide?

…

"Is that some sort of pony metaphor?"

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It'd be a weird one if it was...

"Neigh, it is not." She thinks for a moment. "It… May be one as well -Our use of the modern vernacular is imperfect- but We are not using it as one. Management of the royal household is one of the few areas where We are capable of acting."

…

"What?" I blink. "What? Why are-?" I shake my head. "No, no, a Princess Regent should not be tending to draperies."

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Seriously, Celestia had better get one hell of a dressing down when she turns up...

She looks down. "We are not able to-."

Okay, no. I put my right forehoof on the floor, and…

Um.

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Ah, right. No choreography effect, no easy movement. Back to baby steps...

Wiggle my haunches across to the edge of the couch, lower my right leg into the floor, wiggle a little m-.

There's a burst of surprised laughter from Luna as I land on my back, legs waggling helplessly in the air. That'll do for now.

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Rings! Do the thing!

I pick myself up and put myself down on my four hooves, then walk around the table and lie down so that my face is close to Luna's.

Then I gently headbutt her in the face.

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Oh, my. I hope that isn't the equivalent of some romantic gesture in pony culture...

She blinks in surprise. "What dost-?"

"No moping, no feeling sorry for yourself and no feeling guilty. We're going to work to get you into position to actually function as half of the executive branch. And to start with: you should operate on the strategic level, the instructions given to the pony in charge of decorations, who in turn instructs the maids and stewards who physically change them."

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You're assuming she has a night-shift of castle-keeping staff?

"Such ponies do not operate at night. We are not even certain who those ponies are."

"Doesn't matter, because it's probably not worth your time anyway. What else do you do?"

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Real jobs, not 'lounging around the house in your underwear' stuff...

"We.. visit the dreams of our little ponies, to keep them safe from their nightmares."

"Are these nightmares generally real, capable of causing death or physical injury, or manifesting into the waking world?"

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I would not expect many occurrences of that sort of thing, especially these days. Outside of what she inflicted on herself...

"No, but-."

"Then it's not worth your time, either. At most, you should be gathering a group of psychologist unicorns and teaching them how to do it… Or perhaps your guard's information retrieval specialists. Unless somepony else is doing this already?"

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Celestia? God no, she sleeps like a log.

"Not to the best of Our knowledge."

"Right then. One pony can't possibly reach everyone, but one pony can teach ponies who can teach ponies who can reach all of the most needy. Next… Legal and economic changes. How is your education coming along?"

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Hopefully not 'not at all.'

"Slowly. We-."

"I have in my employ a species who can copy knowledge from one mind to another. If you can grab a few legal experts we can sort that out in a few hours."

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Does that mean a road-trip to Earth?

"We see."

"Assuming that you want to?"

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Try stopping her, Grayven. Go on, just try.

She stares at me for a moment, then smiles.

"Yes, Grayven. We want to very much."

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And there's what she wants: To be an actual ruler, not the 'pretty younger sister' who sits around arranging curtains by herself...

Well. I can see other people looking at this relationship and going "So, when's the wedding?" Honestly, Celestia dropped the ball hard here. Did she just assume that yes, Luna will just happily drop back into the 'little sister' role and be content to relax? Look where that got her last time.

Correction:

What sort of lessons did Celestia arrange have set up for you when you returned?

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Something there is unneccessarily... Mangled.

 

[oct9010]

"No, no, a Princess Regent should not be tending to draperies."

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Princess Regnant, presumably, unless she only reigns in Celestia's name while she's asleep or something.

 

[Cuchulin]

Considering all the stuff in Equestria you'd think that those actually exist.
And that checking the stuff that causes nightmares can be important in finding potential hidden dangers in Equestria.

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It's also good PR.

Yeah, only a few weirdo ponies sit upright. Like Lyra. And equine physiology is very limited in postures and resting positions.

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Which is what got her noticed by fans and is part of why she is such popular Anthropologist.

Wilsonian Ponies are basically built to be cuteness personified...

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That they are.

You're assuming she has a night-shift of staff?

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Bat Ponies are a thing and some seem to serve Luna or at least wear armor with her colors.

 

[Darko]

Wonder what Luna would be like on Earth?
Zoat said that Sunset couldn't use her univorn magic because she lacked a horn, but would Luna become something like a New God if she goes through the mirror?

Zoat in the april 1st episode where a version of Paul offered a ring to Luna, was that version of Wilson and Equaestria located in the DC universe instead of some other universe because i remember reading about a Karnan vessel?

Potential romantic partners for Luna would be Vohc.
Both he and Luna have a not so great history with their siblings and they can make some workplace romance, Luna making sure the moons of different planets stay in proper alignment and Vohc terraforming those worlds.

 

[Chojin Patriarch]

Bat Ponies are a thing and some seem to serve Luna or at least wear armor with her colors.

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Oh, I know about her Night Guard. I meant housework staff, like maids, cooks and secretaries...

 

[Idkusername]

I... Don't think it was, but if you can point out an instance of it then I'll correct it.

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It is just me, then. Sorry.

 

[Ace Dreamer]

Equestrian Guise

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Hmm. Am I the only one who wants to know what g-gnomes, and related, look like if pony-fied?

If you want to get exotic (I might suspect MLP:FIM fans know all about this) you could ask what happens if you take a pony from Earth and persuade them to go through the portal/Mirror? Do they turn into an ape? Get Uplifted? Get really, really, confused?

 

[Sockmonkey]

Yeah, only a few weirdo ponies sit upright. Like Lyra. And equine physiology is very limited in postures and resting positions.

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In rebuttal:

 

[Khettien]

But.. on a level with a rose bush in full bloom, or a willow tree gracefully arcing into a pond.

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If this were 100% true, neither xenophillia nor bestiality would be things. As has been said before, all an adolescent male human going through puberty needs to be aroused is a suggestively shaped knothole in a fence post. While that's not LOVE, per se, it's more than nothing.

(Curiously, I've never come across a similar quote for human females, of any age, and not being one myself I can't comment.)

 

[Valint]

"We.. visit the dreams of our little ponies, to keep them safe from their nightmares."

"Are these nightmares generally real, capable of causing death or physical injury, or manifesting into the waking world?"

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Feels like he's dismissing that way too quickly. After all, dreams are a big enough deal in the DC universe to be worthy of one of the Endless dealing with them.

It's a fantasy utopia; real threats are pretty uncommon (save for season finales, but generally able to be wrapped up in 22 minutes), so I'm not sure this is all that useful a scale.

Beyond that, if she has an interest in a grassroots effort to win the hearts and minds of the citizens, that kind of retail one-on-one interaction (without all the usual costs of travel, bureaucracy and figuring out who actually needs help the most) seems pretty useful.

I mean, she literally has the ability to shape the minds of impressionable young children when they're most vulnerable. If Grayven isn't seeing the opportunity there, he's really not thinking that hard.

Sure, there might be issues with how efficiently she's going about it, but writing off that entire realm seems a bit shortsighted.

 

[ForeverShogo]

I wonder if that wing twitch she had when he said he wanted to cuddle her at first sight was an allusion to the dreaded wing-boner.

As for giving Luna the confidence to be a proper ruler, just tell her to fight racism like in Equestria at War. Or maybe she doesn't actually want to rule anymore since apparently Celestia and Luna planned to just fuck off and retire, forcing Twilight to take on the responsibilities of ruling Equestria.

 

[masterofmadness]

"Once Darkseid isn't a problem anymore I'll just confess to the whole thing. I doubt that my children will care much, and everyone else…" I try to wing-shrug but I mostly just get a twitch.

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You know this raises a question for me, how will his kids react to meeting Luna? Will they fall in love with their new potential princess pony mom? little girls and princesses after all.

Would the possibility of becoming a step mom be an issue for Luna in a theoretical relationship? Or maybe a plus? perhaps Luna would like have a few little girl looking up at her in admiration to shower with love. It would certainly be something she beat her sister to in someway, I mean a thousand years and no nieces for Luna to come back to! For shame Celestia!

 

[Pinklestia]

Oh, I can't want for Celestia's reaction.

 

[TheEyes]

The main problem with Luna is of course that she was gone a thousand years and Eqestria seemingly suffered no issues from this.

Celestia handled the moon, nightmares seemingly were no trouble. The only explanation would be if Nightmare Moon did these things as well, to prove she was a good ruler, but that is never shown.

One could argue that another Alicorn to help defend Eqestria would be valuable...if both sunbutt and moonbutt hadn't proven over and over again how useless they are.

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One would presume the later is linked to the former. Consider:

• Before the Nightmare Moon banishment, Celestia and Luna had to regularly deal with numerous S-class (world-threatening or similar) threats (Tirek, Discord, Windegos, Changelings, etc)
• During the Nightmare Moon banishment, none of these threats materialized for a thousand years.
• Immediately after Nightmare Moon returns (and is rainbow-blasted back into Luna), a bunch of S-class threats, including several of the ones from before the Nightmare Moon banishment, all suddenly rise again, within a few years of each other, and Celestia and Luna are now unable to handle them.

One would naturally link all these together, and conclude that Celestia made some sort of sacrificial bargain when she banished Nightmare Moon, weakening the diarchs in exchange for a thousand years of peace. Hopes then would rely on a weakened Nightmare Moon being defeated by an awakened Elements, who would then have to contend with the sorts of threats that the diarchs normally had to deal with, while they recovered.

 

[Stsword]

Considering a number of their cities seem to be based on Earth's it's unlikely there isn't at least one city which could earn the name "The city that never sleeps."

Get enough people/ponies together in one place and it becomes extremely convenient to have someone working a night shift. Unless the entire species is magically incapable of staying up at night which seems odd considering they control pretty much all aspects of nature.

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Especially since horses are not diurnal.

Nor are they noctornal.

They have alternating sleep cycles, so herds don't sleep.

So every pony city, every pony village should never sleep.

I saw someone online with the theory that Luna's whole "They don't appreciate me because they sleep at night" was a delusion on her part. Zoat went a different way obviously.

Of course, horses also don't talk, have magic, or sing songs about friendship, so having different sleep cycles seems like a weird hill to die on when it comes to suspension of disbelief. <shrugs>

 

[Mquz]

I wonder if that wing twitch she had when he said he wanted to cuddle her at first sight was an allusion to the dreaded wing-boner.

As for giving Luna the confidence to be a proper ruler, just tell her to fight racism like in Equestria at War. Or maybe she doesn't actually want to rule anymore since apparently Celestia and Luna planned to just fuck off and retire, forcing Twilight to take on the responsibilities of ruling Equestria.

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Equestria at war created a 4th main pony race specifically so that Luna could fight racism. In canon, the only other widespread race is the crystal ponies. Other races exist, but there's not many of them (Zebras, diamond Dogs, and griffons are discriminated against, but there seems to be very few of them and racism might not be as much of a problem if there were more of them in Equestria (at least for zebras).

 

[Mr Zoat]

Correction: Something there is unneccessarily... Mangled.

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Princess Regnant, presumably, unless she only reigns in Celestia's name while she's asleep or something.

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Thank you, corrected.

 

[desolatedsabers]

from what i remember people were only racist towards zecora because she scared the ever loving fuck out of them by living in the hellscape that was the everfree forest. diamond dogs are brutish dickheads that generally nick gems without thinking too hard on who they hurt in the process. griffons, at least in gilda's case, are fight hungry pricks. or at least very aggressive. any act of actual "Racism" is mostly motivated by past grievances or in zecora's case "Scary lady vibes." so there isn't really anything to fight aside from miscommunication.

 

[Ngamer11]

Where's Sinestro Ring? How is he taking Renegade!OL acting without any dignity after becoming an Alicorn?

 

[Handlewithcare]

Feels like he's dismissing that way too quickly. After all, dreams are a big enough deal in the DC universe to be worthy of one of the Endless dealing with them.

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Dream in DC doesn't deal with dreams but with The Dream.

Something that, irrc, all other realities depend on. Normal dreams are, like, tiny imitations, connected to the bigger thing.