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November 10th, 2006
08:46 pm - Before the Plague
Donna and Roy are finally married. Whoever cooked up the buffet is to be commended, and now there is music.
The bride and groom have had their first dance and the band plays on. For once, all things seem in the prefect order. Between that, and Roy's words, Connor gets a little bold.
"Hey, Mia? Um...how good are you at dancing?"
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November 5th, 2006
12:14 am - Private journal (locked to comments)
Things have not been making sense lately. It's been so long since I've felt balanced. Meditation does not quiet me. It now feels like an empty habit. Work allows me to forget for a while, block all out but that.
The JLA keeps me busy, but Shay noticed the strain. She thankfully chalked it up to self-absorbtion, which is all it might be. The point is to forget and release the self, to let go.
And I fail.
Dad told me...everything...about Dinah. I knew the bastard did something to her. Light doesn't pass up the cheap shots and he goes for the ones that hurt the most. I find myself looking forward to facing down that son of a bitch. I find myself visualizing his face on the target. He damn near destroyed Earth's greatest heroes, created a moment of panic that made us forget ourselves and what sets us apart from those we battle.
If it hadn't been Light, it would have been someone else, some other test where we'd find ourselves lacking.
And we will be tested again and again...and we can NEVER afford to fail.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/angry.gif) angry
Current Music: "Burning the Ground" Duran Duran
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July 11th, 2006
09:00 pm - Capecon Art show
The anonymous pencil art wasn't bad. Some of it was reasonable, and flattering. The picture of Dad is done very well. Someone paid a lot of attention there.
And then there's...the rest. Someone had a chest fetish and attempted drawing Dinah.
I also find this...fascinating pic of Dad and Arthur. The workmanship is excellent. As for content? There isn't a way to "un-see" something like that. It leaves a mark on your brain like a ink pen going through the wash.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) amused
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June 23rd, 2006
08:50 pm
As I was taking a break from Slater, I checked e-mail. Master Jansen sent me a story he had found, probably knowing how I'd view it.
"The Sheriff of Nottingham captured Little John and Robin Hood and imprisoned them in his maximum-security dungeon. Maid Marion begged the Sheriff for their release, pleading her love for Robin. The Sheriff agreed to release them only if Maid Marion spent the night with him. To this she agreed. The next morning the Sheriff released his prisoners. Robin at once demanded that Marion tell him how she persuaded the Sheriff to let them go free. Marion confessed the truth, and was bewildered when Robin abused her, called her a slut, and said that he never wanted to see her again. At this Little John defended her, inviting her to leave Sherwood with him and promising lifelong devotion. She accepted and they rode away together."
It's supposed to be an assessment of values, a puzzle with no right or wrong, just one's point of view of a "who's more in the right or in the wrong" sliding scale that assesses the listener.
As for what many would joke are the modern-day incarnations...
1) Dad lost all rights to an objection several years ago and many times over.
2) Dinah doesn't cut deals like that. Argument's sake, though? If the rogue's unlucky enough to survive, he'll have multiple fractures and permanant deafness.
3) Roy probably wouldn't make offers like that. Pieter, I can see. Not Roy.
4) If anything remotely resembling this comes down the pike, I will be praying for the Enlightened One's wisdom - and a HUGE bottle of asprin.
Current Mood: amused
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June 22nd, 2006
07:26 pm
Jack Slater is at the Watchtower.
Should I cheer? Dad's a lot happier than I am about it.
****
Almost two years ago...
****
Connor woke up in a dingy cell, trying to put together what happened. He had been chasing some drug dealers down by the harbor, and got them in a warehouse. He'd only seen movement out the corner of his eye before the tranq dart hit, dropping him before he could duck.
The door swung open and there was the man in black.
"You're in the House. There isn't reason to say 'welcome.' As soon as that tranq dart wears off, Roulette's going to want to inspect you."
Connor kept his mouth shut. Any questions he had - "Why did you trick me?," or "Where the hell am I?" - weren't going to be answered. This guy wasn't dealing in answers.
"You check out, you fight in the arena. Fights are to the death. People want to see the Green Arrow fall. Some of them have waited all their life."
"Guess I'll have to disappoint them," Connor said. Unlike Dad and Roy, he's no expert in snark.
"If it's anything," the man admitted. "I've bet on you. You have what it takes to live..."
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/sad.gif) cold
Current Music: "In the Air Tonight," Phil Collins
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February 27th, 2006
10:09 pm
Never eat some of Dad's cooking as a post-patrol dinner when visiting Star City.
I feel like I haven't slept at all.
Onomatopoeia rampaging through the family...that one again. Only more vivid. I could feel it all.
I had to get up and patrol the house. Make sure the alarms and security was in place. Make sure Dad's head was attached to his neck (while trying not to wake him - he is not a morning person). Make sure Mia was okay.
I saw her stretched out on the bed in a tank top and sweatpants. She fell asleep with some of her music playing, headphones on.
Best sight ever. I almost dropped to my knees in a fashion that would have had me hauling water for weeks at the Ashram, and given some harsh words about "tending to my practice" and "all things pass."
Fuck that. Just, for now, fuck that.
Just for today, the family is alive and okay. Can't make any bets on tonight, tomorrow...but today, we're fine.
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January 31st, 2006
12:27 pm
At least it wasn't my left hand. While can write with my off-hand, it does take longer than I'd like.
Tara's not happy, neither is Mia. Can't blame them, but at least they're alive and I'll face down Deathstroke some other day (hopefully somewhere that isn't about to explode). He left a note in my glove with a threat to come back and hunt us down if I let it get known he "went easy" on us.
How redundant. He'll cross paths with us another time, and he'll be out to kill that time. It's inevitable in this kind of life. He and Shiva both have a sense of honor about their mercenary work, even though both of them have the empathy of bricks and scum for clients.
We didn't have the time for a proacted battle, and when I realized he was just there to slow us down, I knew something was up. His usual tactics are lethal. If he wanted us dead, someone would have been dead - probably Mia or Roy. I was the one he was concerened about - it's flattering and pisses me off at the same time.
He wanted us roughed up, but able to recover - just enough to prove himself the alpha dog. I know that second clip he had wasn't rubber bullets. He NEEDED that point proved. Needed it enough to get hired by someone who was willing to blow herself, her father, and everything in a kilometer radius sky-high. He's not someone who risks his neck for a cause. He's in it for the money, and you can't spend that dead. Whatever Slade's trying to handle, it's gone very badly. His ragtag band of rogues is probably falling apart at the seams. Part of me says "serves him right" and part of me knows that the rogues are upping the stakes and getting wilder with their tactics since word about Light got out.
While desperate people make plenty of mistakes, the man with nothing to lose is dangerous indeed.
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December 12th, 2005
08:50 am - You can quit pounding at any time
I should be getting used to the confusion by now, but it's frankly getting me angry.
Tried to meditate, tried katas, even fired up the "practice room" at the Tower and cranked it to the highest setting I had access to. Well, it's made me tired physically, but has done next to nothing for my brain.
Damn everything, I went on this road trip in order to sort out the confusion, to get to know Donna (and Roy) better, and to reconnect with the simple things you lose track of when you're "in the life." Instead, I drag Roy out of a meth lab, find out Dinah had been kidnapped by a known rapist (please tell me she was not attempting to spare me details when she said the scum hadn't touched her) and breaks up with Dad (for the hundreth-plus time), and get Donna swapped out with Cheshire while Mia gets replaced by that lowlife that probably gave her HIV in the first place.
Mia's a good person, and she's been through so much. Koans and meditations on the nature of suffering are one thing - but seeing the old man, the dying man, and the corpse are quite another. Makes the ashram seem...cloistered and out of touch with reality, even though it gave me a lot of the skills I needed to cope with reality. Her relieved hug was about the only part of it that seems real. Most of the rest is like a really bad dream.
Call Dad. Get Mia down here for archery practice. Check in on the college. In that order.
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November 18th, 2005
11:12 am - Praying for peace, preparing for war.
I'm not blind, not near as much as Roy likes to joke I am.
I've heard Donna crying out in her sleep. Whenever I attempt to ask her discreetly, Lian or Roy seems to come into the room, and Donna clams up. Damn it. Dad was not kidding. The resemblances between her and Dinah are impressive. Both of them will deny to every Chinese hell and back that they are just fine when you know they aren't.
And Dad and Roy both are so used to this that they shrug it off until it's one shrug too many and it explodes into either arguments that rattle the walls or go into a bedroom and rattle the walls another way.
*Sighs* And people wonder why I'd rather approach Brickwell than get set up on a date.
There's a lot of peace here, much like the ashram. Desert nights are quiet things, and the view of the stars is perfect. You don't see them so much in the city, where the street lamps blot out the view.
I wonder if Mia's even been stargazing, or if it's one of those experiences that she never had because of demands I'm not going to talk about.
No incense here, but a sage bundle will do. I'm meditating outside the trailer.
No. Praying. Big difference, Connor. Praying for Dinah, praying for Donna, praying for some guidance that makes sense.
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October 23rd, 2005
07:32 am - Road trip
Good job, Connor.
So far, you've managed to tell Lian just enough information about what happened in Greece to suspect what really went on. Your brother and his girlfriend are highly annoyed with you for leaking said information (never mind that I wasn't about to lie - but I did edit what I could).
Top that off with the two of them speculating about Dad and some alleged "girlfriend." We found a supermarket tabloid at the last truck stop with a picture of this "Professor Reyes" and my father shot through the window of our home. Normally, I'm not a violent man, but that reporter was lucky I wasn't home or that Mia didn't bust him. He would have ended up with a broadhead through the lens of that high-dollar camera.
I defended Dad, but I hope I'm not proven wrong. With how I've been stuffing my foot in my mouth lately...
Deep breath. I breathe in, I breathe out. All starts this way.
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October 10th, 2005
05:07 pm - We've started the trip
And already run into our first bit of unwanted news.
It's LEXCORP Media, for crying out loud! Since when do these guys get anything right, or pretend to be something other than the president's propaganda mill? And we know how much Lex Luthor likes the JLA, so any chance to make us look like...
My father has his reputation. Yes, it was earned, but he was interested in living it down. He was as celibate as I was in the ashram. He has worked very hard on rebuilding his trust with Dinah. I...I mean, he proposed two weeks ago. Yes, she turned him down. Does it mean he's going to fall into bed with the first pair of long, female legs that walk by? I'm giving him a bit more credit than that.
Contrary to popular belief, Oliver Queen is an adult and fully capable of behaving like one.
This clipping is going in the recycling at the first stop.
Current Mood: irritated
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September 23rd, 2005
08:38 am - Preparing to hit the road.
Roy and I are still preparing for the road trip. Most of what I need can be put in a single duffel bag - save the quiver and bows, which we're taking and keeping out of sight for the most part.
We're looking to hit a few spots. Donna wants to visit an orphanage in Florida where she was prior to becoming Wonder Girl. Roy wants to visit the reservation.
Me? Well, tracking down my mother is going to be like sifting through sand. She won an obscene amount in hush money/alimony from Armitage. And, boy, am I glad she packed up and left when she did. Then again, the last thing you should pull on someone like Mom is to try to help some lunatic start a race war in New York - liberal, righteous indignation is not my father's department alone. Her mixed heritage (and mine) just added gas to the fire. She's now back to her old wandering ways, coming into a town, staying a few months, heading off again. She's got a laptop and cell phone and checked in after the plague. She spent it in a shelter "somewhere around Atlanta."
Yes, I love my parents. Both of them. However, they are great reminders of why I spent my adolescence in the ashram. Neither are terribly stable.
Let's hope we don't end up in Desolation. It was uncomfortable enough with Kyle. Roy's got a shorter fuse than Kyle did, and a bigger mouth. Not by much, granted. I told Dad about what became of the town and all he did was shake his head sadly, especially when I mentioned the folk singer.
"Goddamn waste," he grumbled and went back to his blogs. He makes no secret about being an activist, but many in the activist world don't like "capes," believing us to be in collusion with the cops - or worse, Luthor. I can't blame them. There are many metas working for a government paycheck, after all. Others view us with suspicion, believing us to be cultivating goodwill with the masses in order to turn on the world we defend later in conquest.
I cannot blame them. Dad often makes comments that the JLA can be "arrogant," and "out of touch" and that he has stayed with them because someone needs to speak for the "ordinary guy" - as if my dad is ordinary. Well, he's not a meta, just very highly skilled. In the company of metas and humans like Batman, that probably makes him "ordinary" by comparison.
That's one of the reason we're stowing the costumes for this adventure. No sense in flashing our personas, even if Arrows don't use secret identities.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/thinking.gif) contemplative
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September 17th, 2005
11:48 pm - Out for a walk with Lian.
I'm not terribly good with parties, and after Lian pulled what she did...
Okay, she did something that's been a private fantasy of Mia's and mine. Roy went to hell for Donna. He died for her, and she chose to return him over her kids. When you make the right decision, not just to impress someone, but because it is right - that's love.
Roy's irrational fear of being some demigod has me wanting to kick his ass. I know, not very Zen of me, but Dad's genetics sometimes override that. My brother sometimes has an ego that defies belief, but it's a cover. His fears of abandonment just keep persisting! He's using every excuse in the world he can think of and then some to keep himself from relaxing around someone he's known since he was a child.
So, I let Arisia go back to being arm-in-arm with Hal Jordan, and took my niece out to the fire escape.
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September 11th, 2005
08:25 am - Nightmare's end.
He woke up at the Youth Center as the medics arrived, staggering to the doors to let them in. With great relief, he watched as they tended to the kids, some of whom were already awake and crabby.
One of the medics shoved some Gatorade at him and Connor dropped into a folding chair to drink it. Oh, he must have REALLY been dehydrated - that normally foul stuff actually tasted great.
They wheel a gurney past him. Kwame Beck - one of the kids. Stout. Comes here to play ball and get a break from his four siblings crammed in a downtown apartment while his mom works two jobs.
"Yo, Tiger Woods," he shouts. Connor perks up at the nickname that the kids have taken to calling him.
"Hey, Kwame. Hanging in there?"
"Yeah, dog. I'm hangin. You and the old man did good."
"Thanks."
Out of the fifty-seven kids taken in by the Star City Youth Center, there were only two deaths. It's still too many, but not the worst case scanario.
Connor polishes off the Gatorade and wonders if Mia and Tara were among the lucky.
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September 8th, 2005
10:29 pm
A crisis is written in Chinese in two characters - one is "dangerous," the other is "opportunity"
And if someone can tell me where the "opportunity" is, they will either get the first kiss I've given anyone since entering the ashram, or a broadhead somewhere they won't like one.
I'm normally the cool-headed one of this household, the one who cautions against going in, bows drawn and anger in our minds.
However, I am angry now.
First, it was a couple demons in that basement, and the poor boy who had been tortured for weeks so his insane grandfather could use my father as another way to live. Then it was Onomatopoeia, killing off lesser-known metas and heroes before coming to our door. After that was a horde of deamons, summoned by a man who apparantly wanted paradise, but unleashed hell. Add Brickwell (who is probably healthy as the proverbial horse) and the usual misguided batch out on the streets...top it with Gods playing chess with us as the pieces.
And now this.
My faith is shaken, hanging by a hair, but not yet broken.
This may be what does it. I'm not certain what it means in the end.
Current Mood: discontent
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September 2nd, 2005
02:29 pm - Out of balance, grasshopper...
I can't blame Roy for feeling a part of him was left in Greece. For all I know, it was.
Things don't make sense lately. The teachings have carried me this far, but I'm up against the wall now. End of line, time to make some kind of turn, but which way? Do all paths truly lead the same place in the end?
I'm thinking of taking Roy up on his offer - an education. Studying business might be useful - managing the center better, getting us a better deal for less expense, so there's more for the kids. Social work or education might also be good ideas. I've seen too many kids who were lost showing up at our doors. Some of them are insanely bright, but nothing's giving them the chance.
Sometimes, around this family, I feel a lot older than I actually am. Dad and Roy are young souls, though, ready to fight, ready to hold on. I've done my own holding on, I guess. A quieter way, but a grasp nonetheless.
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August 25th, 2005
08:15 pm - Homecoming
We all piled into the Titan's plane to get home.
Roy...
I'm still wrapping my mind around it, and not sure I ever will. I saw Hades grasp his hand, and in that instant, he was gone. Then, the brawl starts, and in he rides with Nightwing, who I saw killed hours earlier.
And his friend, Donna...I knew her only by reputation. Neither Kyle or Roy wanted to say much about her, and I wasn't going to ask questions that would lead either to a fistfight.
Donna sacrificed her own children to give my brother and Nightwing another chance. It's...unthinkable, and I hate myself for feeling gratitude.
I know Roy was a little irritated with me at first. We don't exactly work on the same wavelength. Yet, we were shaped by the same father...blood's a secondary thing.
Dad's towards the front. Mia, Tara, and I are in the back. Roy's heading home with the Titans. He earned it.
I'm a little glad for that. I'm not sure what I'd say.
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August 20th, 2005
08:22 pm - Loss.
Son of a bitch...
All the mantras, all the talk about the letting go, the celebrating the ending of life, the quiet songs of peace...
It feels academic now. Dead, just like Dick.
Roy will do his best, I know. However, it's like asking Dad to do the Bat's job. no, asking Dad to do Superman's job...
My eyes may be stinging, but I'm ready. Say the word, Roy. Say it, and we will fight like something out of a Chinese hell. Until then, I will wait.
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June 6th, 2005
11:26 am - On resurrection
Roy wishes my help, and that wouldn't be a problem, normally. After all, he is an older brother for all intents. He came over to the house asking to meditate with me.
I knew something was up with this. Roy is not usually the type who actively seeks peace of mind. He's obtained some for himself, but it's a different sort than the one I find. It's mostly like Dad's, but I'd say that as Dad's become a little older, he's now splitting the difference between Roy and me.
So now he's asking me to help him bring a friend back to the living. This...is something I have mixed feeling about. While my own father is now resurrected and I'm getting to know him all over again, something I'm grateful to have an opportunity to do, I...don't normally support something like this.
Life is suffering, trials, testing. Attachments and cravings are things to struggle with, make peace with, and let go when time comes. Did my Dad's time truly come with that plane crash, and this second chance an insult to how things are supposed to work? I make my peace with it by sayng that Dad still has lessons to learn that he can learn best by returning to a current life rather than going onto a future one. Maybe it's atonement or a another set of lessons that brought back Hal Jordan.
Donna Troy I don't know so well. I do know Amazons believe in Fate, like the Hellenic culture of old. The thread was woven, measured, marked, and cut. Resurrection ties knots in the string, unbalances the wheel. And to directly challengs Gods is an idea that only Roy would be crazy enough to attempt. He and Dad both confront suffering directly. The idea that it's inevitable meets with the proverbial middle finger and more struggle. He and Dad have a lot more in common than they'll admit. It's how they express compassion, I would guess.
Again, I'll help because it's Roy. I will fight my best because it's what I can do. It it truly was Donna Troy's fate to leave this life and move to the next, then I am fated to lose. If Donna Troy is fated to return and continue her lessons of this life, then I'll facilitate that.
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Moby "We're All Made of Stars"
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April 6th, 2005
09:45 pm
Onomatopoeia
Convoluted name for a rogue, isn't it. It's a name that fills me with a lot more terror than I should feel - or should I?
There's a scar above my eyebrow, thanks to him. A centimeter one way or another, and I wouldn't be writing this.
Dad's a mess. I know he's up, downing coffee by the pot and using more swear words than he would in an argument with Carter Hall if politics came up. Mia told me the gory details - how he put his arrow between the SOB's teeth and swore that he'd jam it in his brain if I died on that table. He knows what taking a life is about. He knows what revenge is about, and I know what lengths he would go to protect any of us. Yes, I'm his son, but you can't tell me that Mia and Roy aren't as much his children as I am, even if they aren't blood relations. (Not this life anyway, but we do got around on the wheel, if my Masters were right).
And if something happened to Dinah...Well, he did mention that was one time he did shoot to kill and didn't regret it a bit. No one needed to provide details there - the look on Dad's face was enough.
I just can't shake the feeling that this is just the tip of the arrow. We're not seeing the shaft or the fletchings yet. He knows us - knows who we are and how we can be hurt. He knows we can die.
The Youth Hall, Dad's memorial, Hal's grave, Barry Allen's grave, a couple folks I didn't know...But what's the pattern aside from the obvious? He's trying to flush us out like beating a bush full of birds, and I KNOW there's a net waiting. I'm just wracking my mind trying to see it and find the holes in it before we're caught.
I don't want to "accidentally" switch Dad's coffee for decaf and lace it with valarian. He was pissed off enough last time. Still, it hurts to watch him burn himself up with fear, despite it being well-earned.
Maybe I'm so concerned with his fears because they're covering for my own.
Light a candle, pray for peace. It's time to put to use those many lessons I learned...
A lifetime ago.
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