Freedom to Live - END

Other anons had this to say about Freedom to Live:

"Lanternon? I haven't read his stuff to be honest."
"It's the best [story] out of the pastebin..."
"[The story is] a Green-lantern [sic] wanna be [sic] Gary Stu power fantasy"
"I recommend reading it."
"Does ANY of this make sense?"
"Lanternon are you high? I just have this feeling like you are. "
"Ghoul still a best..."
"That story was shit."
"[Lanternon] does dialogue and world building really well."
"Update when, motherfucker?"
"... Batman..."

But in all seriousness I have to say, I'm impressed that it got as much traction as it did.  I originally came up with the idea for the story while wondering to myself what it would actually be like to live in the sort of world that KC had come up with, only in the absence of the silly, overpowered, deific forces that were forcing it to be mindbreakapalooza.  What would it be like if these beings simply existed in the world.  And so I created a world out of KC's mythos in which that could be true.  I hope you all enjoy the second story I'm currently whipping up, which centers on a young officer-analogue out of the paladin orders which scoured the world and made it into the more reasonable place it is now.

While there's this new messaging function in Pastebin which should allow you to ask whatever questions you may, and while I typically glance over /jp/ threads to see if anyone is shaking their fists at the sky and shouting my name, I figured there will probably be some more questions that I'll want to have answered.  While I don't have more than one on the top of my head, I'll add to this section as time goes by and people wonder over things:

Q:  Why the name, and why wouldn't you tell it to us earlier?
A:  Short answer: because I'm a giant litfag.  Long answer:  Freedom to Live is the portion of the Hero's Journey myth in which the hero, having completed his quest, returns to ordinary life.  Val, being a hero that was denied his quest, had nothing but an ordinary life (accepting the in-universe conception of normality).  There was also the simultaneous meaning in that Val was very much seeking a way to live without hurting anyone, and without being trapped by anyone either.  I was worried that if I gave you the title earlier, you'd all figure that stuff out five seconds in.  Perhaps I was wrong, but some of you did call the nature of his "curse" early on.

Until I have more, I'll just be done with my faffing about and say that I'm glad that you all read my work, and that I hope you'll stop by my next piece and give it a try, too.

http://pastebin.com/u/Lanternon2