I Don't Want to be Great, I Wanna be Me.
So we all know the classic ‘JL meets Phantom through summoning’ prompt, and we usually get Danny “High King, Savior of Worlds, Eldritch, Cryptid, Ancient, No Shits Given, Chaos Gremlin” Fenton making an appearance, cool and confident, running circles around the JL. But what if, this High King they summoned, just… wasn’t.
The Justice League was prepared for anything, with the latest BBG threatening the world they had to take drastic measures. The JL Dark managed to scrounge up the summoning spell they… “liberated” from a cult group a couple months back. At first the JL was against the thought of summoning another highly powerful unknown, but with extensive research, Constantine and various others vouching for this so-called “King Phantom'' , and no option left, well, their hands were tied. Said to be the vanquisher of the previous Tyrant of the throne, Savior of the Infinite Realms, thousands of years old, infinitely powerful, infinitely old, and some smaller rumors claimed, infinitely kind. Phantom is said to be extremely protective of humans (something they were banking on), loyal to its subjects, and said to rarely get angry (yeah right). A terrifying creature, tall and confident in its destructive power.
So yes, the League was prepared. They gathered as many members as they could spare for this meeting, everyone ready for a fight, but praying for none. The Big Three stepped forward while the rest hung back. Constantine and the Dark members start chanting, beginning the ritual.
The chanting ends. The silence hangs. Bodies still.
Then, a flash from the hieroglyphs on the ground and an explosion of wind with no origin, a blinding light originating from the summoning circle grows in strength, letting out a vibrating hum that causes Superman to cover his ears and wince. The hum starts shaking the ground and the light condenses into itself, revealing the silhouette of an object.
The wind stops. The light is gone, the vibration a memory. Everything is as it is before, with one exception.
Wonder Woman, wasting no time, straightens, “High King Phantom, Ruler of the infinite Realms, We are the Justice league, We ask your help in vanquishing The BBG, it threatens the lives of all those who live…” Her eyes widened as what stood before her.
This… this didn’t look like a High King, Vanquisher of Pariah Dark. This little thing did not give any indication of confidence, power, or age… it looked… young. The only thing terrifying about this creature is the size of bags under his eyes. Drowning in soft clothes, hunched over, looking utterly defeated, Nothing like they expected. Diana would almost mistake it if for a human child if not for the glowing eyes, fangs, and slight aura it gave off. But this, this was no King… Is- are those tears in its eyes?!
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Danny has not been having a good day. Or week. Or month, or- anything really. It seems like dying was only the beginning of his problems. No, scratch that, this all started with his parents’ damn obsession with ghosts. Danny swore they were part ghost too with their utter infatuation with all things Ecto. If only they hadn’t tried to access the ghost zone, if only Vlad hadn’t been involved to become Danny’s biggest nightmare, if only his parents gave up their research once they had kids, if only he didn’t walk in that stupid portal to impress his friends.
If only he had stayed dead.
If only he didn’t gain powers, then he wouldn’t be stuck in this mess.
Danny scowled to himself and let himself flop onto his bed. He’s been spending the last couple weeks cycling through this whole rogue gallery, TWICE! Plus fighting a handful of random ghosts who thought they could take on the ‘Ghost King’ (Pariah’s evil reign and thousand year slumber didn’t help either with all the paperwork that’s left for Danny.) Running from the GIW, his parents, and Val as usual, (Ghost Scum,
Dealing with ‘Mayor’ Vlad’s Evil Plan of the Week -Danny’s powers were still on the fritz after that encounter, painful, was a word for it- Not to mention school, between Dash being Dash, forgetting his science homework, missing a test because of Skulker, Lancer and his threats of, “Black Beauty Fenton! If your grades keep dropping you’ll spend the rest of the year in detention! With ME!” and now his teachers (and Jazz) are talking to him about college? He’s still a sophomore, give him a break! It isn’t Danny’s fault the whole universe is apparently out to get him.
The real cherry on top of this whole thing was the recent ‘summonings’. No thanks to the Fruit Loop and his meddling, with Jack Fenton unknowingly helping him, again. A nice little instruction booklet called, “How to Summon the Ghost King, Made Easy!” got out onto the internet and the world, free for any psycho to speed dial Danny away from his life. At various points in the last month Danny has been forcibly -and if he was honest, painfully- ripped from anything he’s been doing and dumped smack dab into the center of various cults’ plans, usually they wanted power, money, or world domination. His saving grace was the process of summoning forced him to transform or no identity reveals, thank The Ancients.
Sam and Tucker have been a godsend in getting the Booklet wiped from the internet, Danny would be lost without them. He would’ve fallen apart the first week into his powers if not for them. Who knew watching your friend half dying created lasting relationships? They really kept him going and he trusts them with his life, really he does.
But Danny would never tell them about some of the things he’s seen getting summoned, he couldn’t do that to them. The various groups of psychos seemed to think Danny was more likely to listen to them if they offered sacrifices.. human sacrifices. Some nights he couldn’t stop smelling blood and incense, couldn’t get those images out of his mind. He hated himself for keeping track, and hated himself for not wanting to. 15. 15 people, so far just because some handful of lunatics wanted some money or something equally stupid like that. Danny was 15, that’s one whole human being, for every year he was alive, one of them was even younger th- she was just- Danny couldn’t- she was- so small…
Pulling his blankets over his head, Danny took measured breaths against the tightness in his throat. It’s Not fair. It’s not. He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t want to be King of the undead, he’s just a kid himself isn’t he? It was just an accident turning on the portal. He didn’t mean to. Why is he stuck fixing everything? Can't he just be a normal kid? Go to school, get good grades, become an astronaut? He’s so completely out of his depth, who is he kidding, it’s just a matter of time before he screws up again and someone gets hurt, or worse. He's trying, though, he is. He tries so hard to be good, to do good. To not turn into Dan.
‘Stop it, Danny. Now’s not the time for bad thoughts.’ This is the first time Danny’s had a chance to sleep in two days, his parents are out and left the home defenses are down, Jazz is studying at the library, Sam and Tucker are playing Doom while keeping an eye on ecto readings around town. He has maybe 4 blissful hours to spend in dream land. He sighed and sunk into his pillow trying to blank out his thoughts before he could spiral again.
A tightening in the chest, and eyes snap open, ‘NO! NO! Please not now!’ is all Danny manages to think before the unfortunately familiar sensation of space displacement takes hold. His transformation is forced on him as he feels himself fall apart and get put back together simultaneously.
‘Just a couple hours rest, is tHAT SO MUCH TO ASK!!??’ The anger leaves before it can fully form due to the pure exhaustion that washed over his ectofied bones and straight to his core. It feels strained, like glass under pressure, not knowing if the slightest change will shatter him. He slowly gets his bearings and- oh, this almost seems worse than a regular cult summoning. At least there’s not a dead body.
It’s the Justice League, and Wonder Woman is talking to him. And Danny, Danny can’t. He can’t. He doesn’t know if they want to trap him, kill him, experiment… if the GIW got their claws into the JL… Danny can’t anymore, He can practically feel his core splintering into jagged gut- wrecking pieces. He just wants to rest, to feel safe, for just a little while. Why can’t he?
Throat burning and eyes watering, Danny realizes he can do something, just one thing. It’s the only thing left that he can do. Something he hasn’t done for a long time, ever since dying.
Danny starts crying.
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Sometimes I think about Urianger's role in and feelings on the Thancred-Ryne dynamic and I think watching it kills him a bit inside. For several reasons.
Like, to begin with there's the guilt he's been carrying with him since he ushered Minfilia to the first, how he effectively killed the person Thancred cared about the most in the world and who's "death" ended up causing Ryne's entire Situation. He looks at what's happening between them and can only think "I caused this" even though that's not really true. No one person is responsible for this outcome, it's a culmination of several circumstances and the consequences of them. Logically, Urianger knows this. But it doesn't matter, because his guilt is overpowering his logic.
And also, like. What Thancred is doing here, the way he's knowingly letting Ryne be and stay hurt because he literally cannot bring himself to tell her his feelings, is the exact same mistake Urianger made with Moenbryda. Of course, the circumstances are vastly different, and the potential consequences to Thancred telling Ryne the wrong things or her misinterperating it is far greater (being a matter of literal life or death), it's still the same sort of paralysis they are trapped in.
And he knows it. He sees it. But he can't say or do anything about it, he doesn't have the right to. He acknowledges the mistake, but he hasn't really improved upon it yet. He still doesn't voice his thoughts and feelings as he should. He's also non-confrontational by nature, he doesn't argue or try to change peoples minds, he probably doesn't think he has any place to.
So, he tries to help in what little ways he can. Because he doesn't want it to become Monebryda again, he doesn't want to know he stole not one but two people from Thancred. So he does what he can. He tells Ryne little tidbits about Thancred, things that help her understand him but are safe to share. Nothing too deep, nothing too personal. Just small things, things that are purely factual, because he can't afford to give her a false image of who Thancred is. He teacher her fun and interesting things, because Thancred isn't in the mindset to provide her with non-essential skills.
I like to think Urianger has brought it up with Thancred at least once, during one of his stays. But nothing would've come of it. Not really. Unlike Y'shtola, Urianger isn't pushy, he'll bring it up once or twice and when he sees this won't go anywhere, he gives up. He wants to help, but he knows that persistance only does do much, and he is not the person who has the resiliance needed to push and push until Thancred finally budges (because he won't budge, it won't help anything but to sour things further by adding aditional stress to an already strained dynamic).
And like. Urianger gets it. He gets it because he's been the same way- not saying what he should to someone he loves more than anything else because she was meant to figure her life out herself, and 'steering' her in any direction by telling her his feelings (regardless of if the 'steering' is intention or not) will go against that. He gets it. He gets it and it's all the more painful for it. He knows it can't just be fixed by acknowledging it or with encouragement, something needs to happen to break the stasis.
I think this is probably why he stayed behind while they went off to Nabaath Areng. This is the very last chance they have to say what they want to, and he can't afford to be the anchor anymore. This is about them, not him, he can't let their resolution be buffed by his presence, so he stays behind. Which was probably for the best. Ryne got nervous when Urianger said he's staying behind, probably not too excited about being alone with Thancred (well, not alone, but WoL doesn't count) so soon after she had ran away crying. But she needs to be nervous. For anything positive to come out of this Thancred and Ryne both can't afford to be too relaxed. As sad as it is, the stress is necessary for anything to happen. He knows it. Does he like it? Absolutely not, but nor does he like his other plots. At least no one dies this time if it goes right.
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Have you taken any pottery classes or were you entirely self taught? I REALLY want to get into it but classes are quite expensive
I took some sculpting in undergrad, but it was in the context of casting and mold-making, not ceramics. So I'm fairly comfortable with clay as a medium but not so much with clay as an end product--not being able to do armatures and having to think about firing is weird. (If I had the opportunity to do bronze casting again, though, I would, no hesitation.) That puts me in the minority of my current pottery peers, who are largely self-taught or only learned in our studio.
I do pottery now at a co-op studio space, and technically that means that I'm taking classes there--but the classes are more like guided lab time? There's not really assignments or anything, and there's only a couple other people who sculpt, none of whom are in my class. Mostly the class just means that the person in charge demonstrates a technique or two once a week and then lets us do our thing.
Personally I think that shared studio space is the absolute best way to go. You spend less in startup costs (kilns are EXPENSIVE, running kilns is expensive, glaze is expensive) and it plugs you directly in to a group of fellow artists who can help and support you at whatever skill level you're at. Yes, classes are expensive--my class is $250 per season. But for me that includes lab space, 50 lbs of clay per season, almost all of the glaze I use, kiln time, and other people doing all the maintenance and kiln loading/unloading etc. Very much money well spent.
Artist-run shared spaces are often not turning a profit on anything with studio fees, just covering operations costs, so while it's pricey, it generally is just...what it costs to do that hobby. And it is sooooo much easier to be motivated when you're going to what is, basically, Grown-Up Art Club.
But if costs are prohibitive for you to do pottery via classes, and you want to learn to sculpt, then get some polymer clay and see what you can do. It's a different game than actual clay, but form is form, and the medium is secondary to figuring out how to translate an idea into reality.
Polymer clay is relatively affordable and doesn't require nearly the infrastructure of ceramics. If you can't spend the money on classes or a shared studio, then polymer clay is a great way to develop technique and an eye so that when you're in a position to spend the money, you already have the skills to make it worth what you're spending.
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