YMMV / With This Ring

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Paul is usually very polite to everyone he meets. However, it's possible to see his politeness more as Condescending Compassion due to not seeing some other people, or even heroes, as equals.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • Larfleeze. He's captured by Paul while asleep to wean him of the Orange Light. It's even more of an anti-climax in the Renegade timeline. The Renegade just teleports into his cave and decapitates him with the Sword of Second and Third, off-screen.
  • Draan Del Daar ends up as this for Butcher's Blood, as after everyone gets their bearings back he is taken down rather quickly.
• Archive Binge: It can actually be a little confusing to figure out where to read the entire story, as it started out with limited-size discussion threads, jumping from one to the next, moved sites twice, and had a discussion thread and story-only thread each time. If you want the full experience of reading all the comments on each chapter, though — including occasional extra Word of God reveals — not just the story, you really have your work cut out for you. The story alone is several million words, and you'll have to trawl at least fourteen separate threads to get it all.
• Broken Base:
  • Whether Nabu deserves to be killed or have been assimilated is divisive.
  • Whether or not Renegade!OL is overpowered or more advantaged than Paragon!OL is a bit of a delicate topic.
  • Whether Renegade!OL is too much of a jerk or Paragon!OL is too nice can anyways rile someone.
  • There was a bit of a divide on how bad things are on Earth -14, with the Syndicate on one side and President Wilson on the other.
  • A minor example occurs with the Assimilation feature. Despite being the main feature of the Orange Lantern Corps, it's sparingly used as are the Construct-Lanterns, leading some fans wishing it was used more often while others don't seem to mind that it's not used that much.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Truggs has barely appeared in the story, but made such an impact that Spacebattles regularly treats him as Paul's dark arch nemesis, the Moriarty to his Holmes.
• Fan Nickname: The Orange Lantern version of Blackest Night is called Orange Dawn or Orange Twilight.
  • Paulphidian is what the fans call Paul and the Ophidian's Fusion Dance.
  • The Ophidian is called Ophidi-chan or Best Snek for her more helpful nature towards Paul.
  • Paul is sometimes called Paulagon, while the Renegade is sometimes called Paulven and Renegrayven.
  • Guy and Ion's Fusion Dance is called Guyon.
  • Wonder Brat for the eight-year old Cassie Sandsmark.
  • Power Ring/Blue Lantern is called Baul.
  • The Sinestro ring is sometimes called Ringnestro.
  • Red Lantern Paul is sometimes shortened to Raul.
  • Loriel is the nickname some fans give the Linda Danvers/Noriel fusion.
  • The Ascendants that work for Grayven have since been referred to as New Ascendants by some.
• Ho Yay: Constantly between OL and Superboy, especially before Superboy and Miss Martian become intimate. It's mostly on OL's part; Superboy seems rather ignorant of his friend's interest in him.
• I Knew It!:
  • Two mysterious figures that Paul interacts with are confirmed to be Eris and Shivering Jimmy of the Shallow Brigade after a reader quickly guesses who they are.
  • One reader correctly guesses what is wrong with Hawkgirl 50.
  • A reader guessed that the people the Renegade freed from SHADE was the Royal Flush Gang.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The SI being subjected to a number of mind-altering experiences has spawned a bunch of memes, starting from when a poster edited in the authors forum avatar's expression to the above page artwork of him. Original image here◊.
  You are now banned from my thread. -Mr Zoat to the image creator
  • In the older sense of the term, this fic started the Follow the Leader trend of self-insert Lantern fics on Spacebattles.
• Moral Event Horizon: Klarion jumped over it when he separated the children and adults into separate worlds, causing hundreds of thousands of children to die.
  • Nabu is considered to have crossed it when he forces Zatara to wear him by holding Zatanna hostage. This act is considered so horrific by Paul especially that he makes a vow to the Ophidian to stop him.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • One of the first things Paul uncovers with his ring is that Lonnie Machin, AKA Anarky, really IS the Joker's son, which was never confirmed or denied in the actual comics. Paul resolves to never divulge this to anyone else.
  • The first time we see Anti-Green Paul, we learn that he was forced to kill by his sentient ring, which also regularly tortures him if he doesn't comply with its demands. It's so bad that he kills himself so that it can't have the opportunity to do so, and the only reason he doesn't die permanently is because he made an arrangement with the estranged daughter of Ra's al Ghul, Nyssa Raatko, to dip his body in her personal Lazarus Pit, every day.
  • Darkseid paying a surprise visit to the Renegade and stripping him of his emotions with the Anti-Life Equation. Special mention goes to the Renegade finding him in his home, with a weeping Ace on his lap, acting like a kind grandfather even though both the Renegade and the readers know that he's one of the worst monsters to ever plague the universe, whose mere presence is immensely and intentionally harmful.
  • The Reveal of the true villain of the Swamp Thing/Gotham Arc: Anton Arcane, the embodiment of The Rot, the avatar of the dead things of Earth. And he's brought Deacon Blackfire back from Hell with him.
  • The Citizenry depopulate planets by releasing snakes that can eat anything, but mostly organic life forms, and that get bigger the more they eat. The organic material is then processed into porridge for the Citizenry to eat.
  • Once the Anti-Life Equation is spread across Earth, we see how several people react to its influence from their perspective, and it isn't a pretty picture.
  • The heroes' perspective of how bad life on Earth is while under the Anti-Life's influence shows that even if they win, Earth may possibly never recover from this disaster.
• Strawman Has a Point: The Mayor of Gotham refusing to release Swamp Thing's wife and obey the law is presented as a stupid thing. However, Swamp Thing is committing an act of terrorism, does not really care about the fact that doing so inconvenienced everyone else, and giving in to it would set a precedent. According to Word of God, to him it's another Sabbac incident. (What the mayor didn't really grok was that the superheroes couldn't actually beat Swamp Thing if it came to a fight.)
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: After the Renegade overthrows the British government, Superman tells him that, regardless of what atrocities they were committing, that doing so was wrong, as all governments have shady sides to them. He brings up the fact that the US government has a task force specifically to take himself down as an example. The problem is that the government that the Renegade overthrew was a group of people who participated in murder, rape, pedophilia, animal abuse, cannibalism, and diabolism, among other things. As such, Superman is the one seen as completely out of line and unheroic.

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