Madman Stuff

Return

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 10:10:20 GMT

He has dreamt this particular dream, or variations of it, so often that it starts to blur with the actual memory: finding the dead bodies of a family that was made to love him as their own, with no regard for their own lives. Only the bodies aren’t those of Lawrence, Colleen and Mere Riley; they’re Harry, Evan and Kara. Or they are Cordelia, Jasmine and Emily. Or Justine, Daniel Holtz and Faith.

(Never Angel or Darla. Sometimes, though, they’re Connor himself, three times over; the baby he can’t remember being, in either of his lives, Stephen, just arrived from Quortoth, and Connor Riley, walking into Wolfram and Hart with no memory of ever having been someone else but the son of Colleen and Lawrence.)

Connor hasn’t dreamt this for a while when it starts again, shortly before Christmas. He has written to some friends from Stanford, though they had been estranged even before the Rileys died and Connor left California, and to Aunt Jane; telling them the non-supernatural version of his life in Gotham, of Harry’s son Evan, of having a partner and a family. They would have read the headlines when he had been arrested last summer for murdering his parents and Mere, and then the headlines when he was exonorated; they’re probably not going to bring either occasion up. In reply, he gets some cheerfully non-committal cards from Tim and Frank, a somewhat curious one from Judy. From Aunt Jane, he gets a photo of all of them celebrating Connor’s graduation, on the day which Connor now knows was actually his first as Connor Riley. No message, no note, just the photo, and he stares at the cheerful faces and knows they should be as alive as he shouldn’t be.

He is good at denial, though, always has been, so he doesn’t say anything to Harry until Christmas is over; then he mentions wanting to visit Jane Riley at the start of the new year. Maybe the photo was meant as a gesture of reconciliation, and maybe as an accusation, but if she hadn’t want to talk to him, she wouldn’t have sent it. He knows he can’t say something like “yes, I am responsible for the death of your brother, sister-in-law and niece” in return, because he hasn’t forgotten Harry threatened to go to jail again, too, if Connor did. But they can talk about the Rileys, whom nobody in Connor’s current life knew, not even Angel who only briefly met them; they can remember their reality, their aliveness. And maybe, just maybe, there is a way Aunt Jane can become part of his new life, too.

It’s something he hopes right until the point where he enters her house in Santa Barbara. He’s not alone; somehow Darla has heard about his trip to California, hasn’t said anything but has invited herself along, and he is aware that telling her to leave him alone, that he doesn’t need supervision and won’t make any confessions or whatever else she’s afraid of, would be against what he wants to achieve here. If he weren’t her son, Connor Riley would never have existed, and no matter whether Jane wants to reach out or accuse, Darla and what she symbolizes is a part of him.

But she’s human now, and so she doesn’t sense it immediately when Connor does, entering Jane’s house. “There are demons here,” he tells her, and then goes completely silent. Because the demons in question aren’t vampires, they’re not anything native in this dimension. But they’re very, very familiar, as familiar as Colleen Riley’s chocolate sundae to Connor Riley, as familiar as Daniel Holtz’ voice to Stephen.

They’re from Quortoth.

***

Clearly, there is something about California that spells disaster. At least whatever this is about doesn’t have anything to do with being insultingly used as a tool to get Lindsey McDonald killed. It’s also not the exercise in suicidal brooding Darla had been afraid of, which is why she had no intention of letting Connor do his guilt trip to California alone. No, this is something new. Or very old. She doesn’t waste time on wishing her vampire body back; life is too short for that, and always was, even after 400 years. She does wonder whether she should get the hell out of here so Connor can battle whatever it is undistracted. If you can’t help in a fight, be sure you’re not around to be taken hostage by the opposition. On the other hand, being limited to human fighting skills still doesn’t make one useless, and well, if whatever is in here has killed yet another Riley, Connor definitely needs someone around after he has slaughtered it. So she nods, as silent as Connor, and opens her handbag as they move into the house. Inside it is a taser, that eminently useful instrument which works against most species. Darla was never one to disdain modern technology. There is also her cell phone, and while activing the taser, she also hits speed dial. Her darling boy is a continent away, but it can’t hurt to let him know what is going on. As soon as they know themselves.

They don’t have to wait for long. In the living room, there is a woman, barely recognizable from Connor’s graduation day photo, looking as if her body is slowly turning to fluid glass.

“Destroyer,” she whispers hoarsely. “Destroyer. It’s been years.”

Next to Darla, Connor goes rigid. “Let her go,” he says. “If she dies, I won’t kill you right away. I’ll take a long, long time. You know I can.”

“So many of us,” the woman says. “So many of us you killed. But the Devourer isn’t here to help you with her light this time, Destroyer. And we have learned since coming to this dimension. We have learned through the years. We evolved. You’re not the only one who can lay traps anymore.”

“What do you want?” Connor asks, while Darla fades in the background, a skill she has learned before ever becoming a vampire. It’s useful. She plans on moving around the thing and getting the drop on it, but it would be good to find out more about it. With bad luck, it might just be immune to electricity, though that mention of a dangerous “light” hopefully argues otherwise. But this is clearly a case of demonic possession, and she has no intention of becoming the next host once the Riley woman goes down. She’ll leave that to the likes of Cordelia. No, the only demon Darla would welcome in her body is her own. Certainly not some watery, glassy ursuper from out of town. She’ll have to play this carefully.

“We want to go home,” the woman says. “Trapped in this world now for years, that’s what we were, all of us you and the Devourer did not kill. Underground we went, and there we evolved and learned. We can only go home together, Destroyer, all of us who came from Quortoth and are still alive. There will be another crack we can slide through if you say yes, but we must all go together. We cannot go through on our own.”

“You’ll leave this woman?” Connor asks, and Darla thinks she knows what he is planning to do. He’ll trick the entities, draw them out of Jane Riley, and then either kill them, which it sounds like he knows how to do, or let them end in whatever “crack” they’re planning on opening.

This must have occurred to them, too. If they went to the trouble of luring Connor here through Jane Riley, they must be smart enough to know they need a catch, a safety pin.

“You go first, we follow,” the parched voice declares. “But we learned, Destroyer, we learned. This woman’s kin, you killed them just as you killed our kin.”

Connor says nothing. Darla is behind what was Jane Riley now, but still too far away to use the taser on her.

“Magic,” the entities whisper with one voice. “They died through magic. They became your kin through magic. We learned magic. There is power from opening a rift, Destroyer, you know that better than most. We wove a spell. If you go back to Quortoth with us, those who died for you will come back. At once. They will live again, all three. But only if you are back in Quortoth. If you ever return to this dimension again, they die once more.”

Darla looks at Connor. No, she mouths, no sound escaping her lips. It’s not true. It’s a lie. Don’t believe it.

“Slugs cannot lie,” Connor says out loud, and he says it to her as much as to them. His voice has gone flat. “They never could. They are physically incapable of it. If you force them to speak an untruth, they die. So it’s true.”

“Humans lie,” the possessed Jane Riley agrees. “You and your father, Destroyer, and your Devourer, you lie. We don’t. We swear. Their lives will be restored the moment you leave this dimension.”

He’ll hate her, but what else is new? Darla can’t allow this to happen. She sets the taser to full force. It’ll probably kill the body of Jane Riley, especially in its current condition, and it might get her possessed, but it probably will take out most if not all of those things, and most importantly, it will keep Connor from – no, don’t even think it. Act. Darla leaps forward, taser in hand… and finds herself pushed aside, to the ground, by her son. Connor is white in the face, and his eyes are burning.

“I agree,” he says to Jane Riley, and then he looks at Darla. “I’m sorry,” he adds softly. “I don’t want to leave, you must tell Harry that, and Angel. But Mom and Dad and Mere – this is my one chance to save them. They should never have been used by Wolfram and Hart. And I shouldn’t be here to begin with.”

Behind them, the slugs hiss inside of Jane Riley, and there is a smell of ozone in the air, a crackling sound pervades the living room, and Darla has to shut her eyes for a moment as a dark red light flares up. When she opens them again, she gets up and returns her son’s look, steadfastly.

“You’re not going there alone. Not again,” she says, and without hesitation or further argument, because Darla has never been one to waste time once she has made up her mind, she walks directly into the rift that has opened to the darkest of all dimensions.

She loses all sense of orientation, and it’s every bit as frightening and bewildering as waking up in a box at Wolfram and Hart’s was, with her last memory then being dying at Angel’s hand. It only lasts a second, though. Then she feels a hand clasping her wrist from behind, and she sees her son at her side.

“You,” Connor starts, sounding furious and overwhelmed, “you shouldn’t have – you never – “

Then words fail him, and he hugs her. It’s something that rarely happens, and Darla would treasure it, but there is a herd of slithery glassy slugs creeping up around them, and really, her family always has been better at killing things together than at bonding through verbal communication.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s take them all.”

***

In Santa Barbara, Colleen, Lawrence and Mere Riley open their eyes.

ooc: and thus, I take my leave of my two favourite muses. It's been a wonderful experience playing them, and I will miss it, and my fellow players, so very much. But I hope their exit did them justice, and will give new muns the opportunity to play their own versions of the characters...

Intrigue

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:13:45 GMT

"A hunter has to be cunning," his father once said, and Stephen learned his lessons about snares and traps well. But his father never taught him to lie; there was no need, as the only two creatures in Quortoth that seemed to have speech were themselves. When Stephen did lie, blaming his demon blood for the impulse to do so, it was to his father, about and he always failed miserably.

The last time he failed happened in Los Angeles, about his encounter with Angelus, and his father saw through this as well. As a direct consequence, his father sent him back to Angelus and died.

"But what do you want to do?" Justine asked him, sounding both frustrated and surprised, when he told her he was not going to kill Angelus.

It was like entering a new world, all over again. Stephen was a miserable liar. Therefore, he had to stop being Stephen. He had to be the one who could think such thoughts, execute such plans, the one who could deceive with a smile, just as the Prince of Lies himself had done; the son of the demons. Not Stephen Holtz. Connor.

When he told her, Justine looked thoughtful, impressed and a bit frightened at the same time. The tears she had cried for his father were not yet dry on her face, but she did not waste time on gestures such as wiping them away.

"Could work," she said. "But if it doesn't, if he he figures it out ahead of time, then your father will never be avenged. It's really much simpler to stake him. Done and over with."

"I told you," Connor said coldly. "He gets to live. Forever."

She did not doubt him anymore. In his heart, he still was not sure whether he could do it. Whether Angelus, with the blood of his father still warming his veins, would not know him at once for the pathetic failure he was at this particular game. But no, that had been Stephen. He didn't get to be Stephen anymore. Stephen had caused his father's death, and so Stephen had to die.

The small voice of doubt refused to be silenced. It remained with him until he stood in the Hyperion and saw Angelus looking at him, dark deceiving eyes full of nervous joy. I amyour son, Connor thought, and suddenly didn't find it difficult to smile back at all.

The trap was laid.

Who is the wisest person you met?

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 10:11:53 GMT

Good question. I mean, I've met and I know a couple of smart and downright brilliant people, but that's not the same thing.

*locked*

~~Jasmine~~.

Of course, as a child in Quortoth and a good while after I thought my father was wise. I didn't stop thinking that until I got my head around the concept of him killing himself - well, using Justine to do it - something he had always taught me was a mortal sin. Once I started accepting Angel had said the truth about that, I knew it had been my fault, because obviously my father couldn't trust me to do what he had raised me to, but I also knew he had not been the wise man I had believed him to be. He should have found a way rather than to return to hell without me. He should have.

*unlocked*

So - I guess it was Lorne. When I met him - when I recall meeting him, he knew me as a baby, but I don't remember that - I pulled a knife on him. I'd say it was because I grew up in a hell dimension and didn't get called "The Destroyer" there because I was nice to demons, and he is, well, a demon, but the truth is, I was just freaked out and generally pissed off as hell after my first day Los Angeles. He sort of took that as a sign to leave town and wasn't around for the next three months when I was living with Fred and Gunn at the Hyperion, so I only really got to meet him once he was back from having a career in Las Vegas and living in the Hyperion again. No, we still didn't hit it off. I don't think it was because of the having tried to kill him thing - Cordy told me they all tried to kill each other at some point, pus apparantly Lorne can survive head removal, so he wouldn't have died if I had slit his throat, not that I'm saying what I did was okay because of that - but see, it had clued him into something everyone else missed: I wasn't the baby they had all loved, I wasn't whoever they imagined son-of-Angel would be, and he never expected me to be that again. He wasn't disappointed and horrified the way Fred and Gunn were once they found out about the under-the-sea-thing, and he didn't go into ultra-avoidance mode the way Wesley did; he just knew I was trouble, accepted that, was on his guard and otherwise was polite and never asked me to sing for him. (The last one is dislike of torture, I guess.)

The only person I've seen Lorne actively despise was Lilah (because of something she did to his brain); otherwise he was just relaxed with good guys, bad guys and just about everyone. He always knew what was going on between everyone, and I don't think that was being an empath deman as much as it was having figured people out and not judging them because of that (unless they tried to remove his brain). You know, not in a kind of lovey dovey "let's all be friends" kind of way - like I said, there were people he never stopped being wary of, me among them - just in a "that's what people are, so just chillax" kind of way. Plus he had a non-stop collection of nicknames for Angel which had all to do with food, and anyone who can do that really is the best. I think what I'm trying to say here is that Lorne was cool, he got people (of any species), it didn't make him a cynic, it just made him a realist who still enjoyed his life - it made him wise, in a word. I wish I had figured out how cool he was when we were still actually living in the same place and before I got mindwiped.

Also, I blame him for the Barbara Streisand lyrics I have in my head at times. No way that was Cyvus Vail.

Lost

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 14:01:51 GMT

"The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place." The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon.

"How do you know they were ever real?"

It's a question thrown at him when he's busy fighting a mind-reading demon, an empath who couldn't be less like Lorne; Cordelia once had an unpleasant encounter with a representative with the species and nearly ended up blind, her seer's eyes put up on an auction.

"Your family, that perfect family your father had tailor-made for you by the people he sold his soul to. How do you know they were ever real? Maybe that is why they died when you asked for their memories of you to be removed. Because they had no life of their own before they were created for you. Ever thought about that, hm?"

Connor recognizes distraction in a fight; he's been trained by two fathers brilliant with tactics. He also has a vivid memory of Tony Chilton taunting him, and how getting distracted then allowed Chilton to live long enough for more innocent people to die. So he focuses, and the demon is soon dead. But the question, once spoken, haunts him and refuses to go away.

Of course, he has known that most of his memories of the Rileys, technically speaking, were not real and never happened, has known for years now. It didn't matter because they were real to him. But the idea that the Rileys themselves did not exist before Angel made his deal with Wolfram and Hart is obscene, and horrifying beyond belief. It can't be.

All the photo albums burned with the house. He looks up his dead sister's high school website, to find that they list names of past classes but only have the photos of the graduating students. He looks up his parents' obituary; surely, all that business with the police suspecting him last year must have ensured those old articles were kept around? Except that they weren't, which might or might not be because someone paid a lot to have that whole story vanish. He calls his aunt, but there is a stranger on the phone who says the previous owner of the house has moved, and refuses to hand over a phone number or address.

There are still his memories, both those from before graduating and after, with those after feeling no more or less real than before despite his awareness of the date meaning they actually happened. But his memories are deceptive, constantly intermingling, those of Quortoth with those from an idyllic California childhood, which they really shouldn't, and with what happened after, and who is it that loves the Simpsons, Kara or Mere, or both? Or either?

He can't recall Colleen Riley's favourite perfume anymore, and yet he must have given it to her for mother's day more than once. He can't remember. And if there is no one but him to remember, if that is really true, then he is killing them all over again, bit by bit, with every memory lost.

Connor dreams. Not of the Rileys. He dreams he's writing, a skill his father, the most relentless of his fathers, taught him by letting him draw lines in the red sand of Quortoth. He dreams he's writing in the sand, writing of what he still can remember, and the sea that never was in Quortoth, the sea he saw for the first time when Gunn and Fred brought him there, creeps towards him and annihilates every single line.

Twenty Years Hence

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 08:25:11 GMT

Where do you see yourself in twenty years?

Seriously? Up until about two years ago, I figured I'd be dead.

*locked from everyone except Harry and Cordelia*

Except for the part where I have this suspicion Angel wouldn't let me stay dead; he'd find some other way of bringing me back, and more people would die or go crazy or both, and maybe I'd end up like one of the Wolfram and Hart zombies because sooner or later, all those resurrection magic is bound to backfire. I just don't trust it. And I still think that could be a likely option for my future, and you know why? Because. If Angel got dusted. I'd find some way to bring him back, too. Any way. Don't tell him that.

*unlocked*

Now I have some less dramatic ideas. Going back to college at some point, really becoming an archaelogist because I enjoyed that, though I like the private eye job, too. But what I really, really hope I'll be doing in twenty years: being on my way to Mars. Because at that point, we should have at least limited space travel to the neighbourhood planet, and I just think being in space would be awesome. Plus I have the necessary physical condition ~~and experience with other dimensions - no way Mars would be tougher than Qortoth~~. Watching the Earth from space, stepping on another planet. That's my wish for something to happen in twenty years.

Two letters

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:39:16 GMT

Dear Kara,

I read the Edith Nesbit book you told me about. And I downloaded the Simpsons movie on the internet for you (it's on the CD attached). At first I thought maybe they'd let you take a break for one evening so we could watch it in the cinema, but then I had a reality check, since even if they did, you probably wouldn't want to watch it with me.

Anyway. I was thinking of the novel you started to write; and about that fantasy I told you about ages ago, about what would have happened if when they mindwiped me they would have inserted me in your family, and how we would have ended up running away to the circus together. (Before you told me you didn't like animals.) (Except for turtles.) (I asked Angel and Darla who takes care of your turtle and the frogs when they told me you'd go to S.H. and they to New York. This ended up in some yelling, but don't worry, we calmed down. I'd have volunteered but Darla said this was a really bad idea and so I asked Natalie instead. So, anyway. Turtle and associates acccounted and cared for.) I wish I could write a novel for you and rewrite your life with me not being such a bastard in it, or, well, not there at all.

Now you're saying: "Because that would make things easier for you." But it wouldn't. I try to imagine my life without you and there is this big empty blank that hurts just as the absence of my other family does, and I don't want a life without Kara in it. Not because I miss Mere. Because you're you. I'm still learning about you, Kara, and I don't think I'll ever really figure you out, but I promise I won't ever stop trying.

Yours (really)

Connor

Sahjahn -

considering people come back from the dead on a regular basis, I expect you to show up any time soon.

So. I'm not sorry I killed you. Not because Father and myself ending up in Quortoth for seventeen years; I got all the details now, I think, and that was Father's choice. And not because you forged a couple of prophecies, because if anyone has reason to hold that against you, it's Wesley. They turned out to come true anyway. Plus when I showed up to kill you, I was mindwiped, and for all I knew then you had been the nicest guy ever in the past; the only reason to kill you I had then was that this guy Veil was blackmailing me with my family.

Then of course you tried your best to kill me, and if my memories hadn't come back, you'd have succeeded, but hey. You wanted to live. I get that.

But you know, why I'm not sorry? You held me by the throat.

Just for the record: I really, really, REALLY hate it when people do that to me. And just one person has the right to. That's not you. So when you do come back from the dead and do the usual demon stick of trying to kill me again/send me into a hell dimension/ mess with my mind? Don't do that again, and you might survive this time.

Connor (Stephen)

Religion

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:47:47 GMT

Apostate.

It's a word Connor Riley, Connor who has two parents who are Episcopalian in theory but mild agnostics in practice, has absolutely no connection to. It's something he comes across while studying for his finals, Julian the Apostate, the emperor who tried to turn the tide and bring back paganism after christianity had ruled for several generations in Rome already. Julian who was raised as a Christian but chose to worship the gods anyway. He's been reviled as a traitor evers since. A historical curiosity, nothing more.

Apostate.

Once Connor gets his memories back, he starts to suspect why this particular expression resonated enough with him to remember it.

"When we arrived here, in hell," his father once told him, "I used the first water I could find to baptize you, my son. The demon who gave you life cannot enter a church without feeling his damnation, and thus he only gave you a false name, a name for earthly laws."

"But it is not my true name," Connor responded dutifully. He knew this story, and fell into the comforting rhythm quite easily.

"No. And why not?"

"Because the lord Christ has saved us from hell through the sacrament of baptism," Connor recited. "Connor was the child of two demons, and then you saved me and made me a child of the church. My name is Stephen."

"That is right. Even if we should die in this place, which we will not, Christ will lead you to heaven, my son." His father had put his hands on Connor's shoulders. "You are Stephen. Never forget it. There is no mercy for apostates."

An apostate denied the truth he had been shown, and embraced another faith. Starting to think of himself as Connor in addition to Stephen happened during the summer he spent with Gunn and Fred, when he still thought of himself as faithful; it wasn't just that they kept calling him Connor, it was that Stephen had let his father die and had felt drawn to the demon, and that was unacceptable, so there had to be something of Connor in him, and the name was fitting. Then Angel returned from the sea, and brought another story of his father's death with him. He claimed Daniel Holtz had told Justine to kill him.

"Suicide," his father had said firmly, "is a deadly sin, and the only one God can never forgive."

Suicides resided in hell, then, together with apostates.

Apostates could repent before dying, though. So could murderers. But not if they were angry; not if they were confused and trying to make sense of it all and could not pray any of the prayers they had been taught without feeling the fire of loss and rage. Our father, who art in heaven? But he was not. Neither of them. They were both in hell, only different levels of hell, and this was hell, nor was he out of it.

He couldn't let God save him, could he? That would be the ultimate desertion. He had to remain in hell, too.

There was another childhood prayer, of course. Hail Mary, full of grace. Mary the mother, but Connor's mother was dead and a demon, and the mother of his child, giving miraculous birth, with Connor and Angel kneeling in adoration like the shepherds, was taken away, always a Madonna, never reaching the Pieta stage. The Transcendant Mother, Jasmine's followers called Cordelia. Transcendant came from the Latin, like "apostate". Transcendere. To go beyond. Out of reach.

Jasmine was within reach, but Jasmine was not a part any world God created. She was another faith in herself. She was her own creator, her own communion, and the grace she gave to everyone was her own as well, untouched by any fathers, in heaven or hell.

"Give me your pain," she said, and Connor knew quite well that pain was love was faith was hope of salvation. And blood. Of course it was blood. His and hers.

She healed him, and Connor chose to worship.

Apostate.

He wondered whether Julian had known jealeous fathers were still waiting for his return, too.

Universal Studios (rp for Kara)

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 09:15:38 GMT

After decades of fights about the subject, Los Angeles now has a subway. What's more, one that has a station at the Universal Studios. Considering Kara's aversion to cars, Connor decides to use it, though he is aware this could also get him accused of being tight.

He bought the two tickets on advance, so maybe that would help, and a programm with the attractions. The studio ride, he thinks, maybe, and the Back To the Future rid, and the Jurassic Park one. There is a big question mark behind the Animals show, due to Kara's dislike for animals. But she has her frogs and the turtle now, so maybe she'd want to watch.

He'll get it right, this time. One day where she has actual fun and doesn't hate him. Well. Not during this day anyway.

Coming back to Los Angeles is odd, each time, because there is nearly no corner without memories, but the Universal Studios theme park is an exception. Mom and Dad and Mere never went, for some reason, or maybe they did and Cyvus Vail forgot to add that; he definitely didn't go in the other life. So. No memories. Time to create some new ones.

Looking at the world

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 13:29:59 GMT

Curt: We set out to change the world and ending up… just changing ourselves.
Arthur: What's wrong with that?
Curt: Nothing! … If you don't look at the world.
(Todd Haynes, Velvet Goldmine)

So, when your father whom you've left under the sea for all eternity comes back after three months, really pissed off, and tells you the reason why you did that to him was a lie and your other father was the cause of it, you don't listen to much else of what he has to say. You argue back, and then you get ~~kicked~~ out. Well, I did. But I while I didn't listen at the time, I did hear what he said, and in the weeks after, when I was trying to figure out who had been the liar between the both of them and whether it wasn't still Angel's fault, it kept coming back to me. Kept coming back. What he had said about the world.

Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It's harsh, and cruel. But that's why there's us. Champions. It doesn't matter where we come from, what we've done or suffered, or even if we make a difference. We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be.

My major purpose in life had been to avenge my father - Daniel Holtz, I mean. Which I had just proved I couldn't do properly, plus maybe, just maybe, it had been the wrong purpose. Or I was the wrong person. But I still existed, and it had to be for something. Something other than staking vampires or decapitating demons. And I hadn't been in Los Angeles or this world for much longer than three months; it was way better than Quortoth, but Angel still had a point. People were screwing each other over everywhere, they didn't need demons for that. And maybe if you're alive when you really shouldn't be after what you did, if you exist when you shouldn't have been born, then you owe it to the world not to sit on your ass and feel sorry for yourself but to do whatever you can to change things.

When Jasmine was born, I thought that this was it. A new world, one much better, and it was, in many ways. It wasn't just talk of change and some minor stuff, but people were different, genuinenly different. For those few weeks. They all loved each other, nobody hated each other, envy, greed, all of that was gone.

Not with me, of course, but still, I was happy to be a part of this until things started to crumble. And I shouldn't have been, because at the same time, I knew about the price, and nobody else who lived in paradise and believed in Jasmine did. Well, they knew but they didn't mind, except for Fred and Angel and the others after they left her. The price for paradise was that Jasmine needed to eat people to nourish herself. It ended the way it did. Fast forward some years, and the world is pretty much in the same state it was then. I'm not - no recent attempts to kill a couple of strangers, someone I love and myself, thank you very much - but I'm still around, and still sometimes wonder why, and still keep coming back to what Angel said then.

When I watch Harry playing with Evan, I'm reminded of one big reason why I can't stop wanting the world to change. It shouldn't be what it is now if you have a child growing up in it. Which means you have to work for this change. And figure out ways to do that which don't involve human sacrifice, obviously. But if you stop looking, if you settle, then it means that child will have to face the same shit later on. And what does that make you?

Restarts

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 15:39:46 GMT

If you could completely start your life over from scratch, what would you do differently the second time around (if anything)? Why?

I actually got to do that. Okay, sort of. Since someone else did it for me - rewrote my life, I mean, from scratch. Which is why I know how it works. Or doesn't. I mean, it did, and the reason I'm not dead is because I have the memories of another life in my head right now. But for that to happen, I had to forget everything else. And everyone else else had to forget the old me, and remember the new one. So all the reasons for wanting to change stuff were forgotten, too. And can you really do things differently if you can't remember what you regret doing? It's not you who does that. It's a rewritten you who does that.

Obviously, I remember now, and I make my decisions based on that. But the life I live now is after - after both lives I remember. Not from scratch. And no, I really don't want a third round. ~~The first two got enough people killed.~~

*locked*

But okay. Say that I could go back in time, with all my memories, and restart. I think there's no choice, really. Not if you look at the facts.

I wouldn't make the slugs show me how to get out of Quortoth. I'd stay there with my father.

Not just because of him, though he's a reason, yes. He hated that place, but he was sort of resigned to it, and in any case, he'd never have given up there. He would have remained alive until old age or one of the predators got him, and I'd have made sure it would be old age. He wouldn't have ~~killed himself made Justine kill him~~ died the way he did.

I know now what it is to lose a child. So I know what it must have been like for Angel. But you know - he had started to adjust. It's what he does. Why he's still around, curses and trips to hell and three months under the ocean be dammed. Oh, yeah, the last one wouldn't have happened, either, if I hadn't come back. I'd have remained that baby on the photographs Cordy showed me to him, the one he imagined growing up to be how Connor Riley was before I got my memories back. Cordy - she wouldn't have gone through a coma and a death. Jasmine would still be there, but as a Power, she'd never have become flesh. Maybe she'd have figured out a way to help people that didn't depend on eating others, maybe not, but she'd still exist.

So would the girl who died so Jasmine could be born, the cop I met the night after she died, and a lot of other people.

Harry. I think Harry and I are good for each other, and I know I'm happy with him. I want to spend the rest of my life with him, if I can. But you know, I don't think I'm the only one who is good for Harry to live with. He really was in love with Kara back when he met, and okay, she was young - really young - but she'd have gotten older, and I think he would have waited for her. He doesn't stop loving someone; he would have. Which means no Lex, which means no suicide attempt for Kara, either.

Even if that's not guaranteed; even if. Something else is. Mom, Dad and Mere. Without me coming back, Angel would never have made a deal with Wolfram and Hart. Which means Cyvus Vail would never have screwed with their minds and inserted me in their lives, which means they'd still be alive today. Father, Angel, Cordy, you can say they all in different ways chose the life they led, though I'd tell you a lot of things happened to them that were done by others, but still. They made choices that led them to the point where I showed up. And Jasmine, of course, was a higher being anyway. But the Rileys were just normal people who never chose any of this. They didn't get to make a choice. They were just used so I could have my second life, and then I made it worse by not letting them choose, either, and now they're dead because of me. So really, if I could give them back their lives? If I could do that?

It's not a choice. No choice at all.

Tammies!

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 20:16:35 GMT

Due to Darth Real Life stalking his Mun in recent months, Connor hasn't been online as often as I'd have liked. Tonight I checked to see what was going on and lo and behold, my two muses have been nominated for Tammies.

Connor and Harry got nominated for favorite non-canon couple, which makes the me misty-eyed and extremely grateful for osborn_heir and his lovely Mun. That whole relationship surprised us as much as it did the boys and has been consistently fun (fun meaning the occasional how-to-torment-them-some-more thread, of course!) to write for nearly two years now. Wow. Time passes.

Connor also got nominated for "Favorite Teen - Male" , which makes me smile. (And makes him point out to me, with gravitas, that he's not a teenager anymore, to which I say, shut up, most of my prompt replies for you are set during show canon, and you were a teenager then. Besides, you're not that much more mature now. Look at just about every conversation you have with Kara. Or Bruce.) Thank you!

*Mun wanders off, beaming in Connor-pre-mindwipe-reversal-way*

Mommy

Sun, 13 May 2007 16:08:54 GMT

Mere stopped calling her that when she was three, because I didn't anymore, and she wanted equal sibling rights. Which was totally a Mere thing to do, even at age three. Mom looked sort of wistful. That day, Dad guilt tripped me into calling her "Mommy" again so Mere would have to a while longer, but Mom was on to him and said to stop that nonsense and that she was very proud her children were growing so fast.

So, either none of that happened, or those are someone else's memories they implanted in me; I don't try to think about that too hard, because that means that someone must have died, too. Either way it didn't happen to me. I never called her Mommy, and I wasn't there when her daughter Mere stopped doing that, either. But you know, it doesn't matter. Because here's another memory, just a few years back. After I had killed Sahjahn and gotten my memories back, we left Los Angeles again. I had still some vacation before the next term started, and I was going to spend it at home. Except the moment I entered our home, the moment I saw some family photo, all of us on a beach, me at age 5, it hit me, the reality of it. I was at Quortoth at age 5, learning to kill. And just the past night, I had killed again, some demon who told me I made a good case for free will versus predestination. And I had seen - that's how far I got when I had to throw up.

Now, Mom and Dad had zero idea about the killing Sahjahn thing, let alone anything else. I had told them I had done tests all the night at Wolfram and Hart's, because of the newly discovered superstrength, and that I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I didn't even hesitate before lying to them the moment I saw them again, which I guess says something about me. And while I didn't have any idea yet what I was going to do with two different lives in my head, I knew they couldn't find out. (Make that: I didn't want them to find out. I didn't want them to look at me and see a psycho killer instead of their son.) So here I was, throwing up for no reason as far as they knew, and I had been hyper and cheerful just the moment before. Dad had just spent the night patched up by doctors and dosed with tranquilizers. Mom had spent it at his side, so probably sleepless. Plus no matter what I said to them, of course they were still worried; they were parents. They had been worried since I got run over by a van and had recovered. And did I mention they had nearly been killed by some thugs of Cyvus Vail's early on in the night? Demons?

Mom, Colleen Riley, wasn't a demon fighter. She wasn't a champion. She wasn't anyone's destiny girl or prophecy child, and no special messenger ever came for her. But she didn't have a nervous breakdown. She didn't slap me or shake me; she didn't ask what the hell was going on. She just went to the kitchen, got a wet towel, cleaned my face, and sat with me on the steps in front of our house, silent, her arm around my shoulder.

That was when I knew it didn't matter whether one set of my memories was mostly fabricated. Whether I had ever seen her before the day of my high school graduation - which hadn't happened, either - or not. She was Mom, and I loved her.

I still do.

Who has made you smile recently, take two: rp version (backdated to last week)

Sun, 13 May 2007 15:02:32 GMT

*locked from Kara*
*on second thought, locked from everyone else else as well*

Harry and Evan. Evan because he said my name. Okay, it sounded more like "Conma" and Harry said he said "Conman" and that this totally should be my name anyway, and I tried to pretend I was insulted, but I had this huge grin on my face that kind of gave it away. Afterwards Harry wanted to show off his omelette-making skills again, so count that as more smiles.

It's weird, sometimes, waking up in the morning and realizing no new catastrophe has happened and I totally don't deserve it, but - this is what happiness is, I think. Not flashlight, lightning strikes happiness but the ongoing thing where of course you sometimes argue and roll your eyes and piss each other off, and in between you think of things you've done and mistakes and worse than mistakes, but most of the time, you can just look across the table and listen to him reading to his son and know that there is no place in the universe where you want to be more.

If that's not a reason to smile, I don't know what is.

Who has made you smile recently? (Take I - show canon)

Mon, 07 May 2007 14:05:04 GMT

Praise

They're outside the - "club" was what the girl with the visions had called it - , and Stephen feels the elation that usually comes with having won a good fight, only more so. Which is unexpected. As unexpected as Angel taking his arm and using his stake to dust the last of the vampires.

"They don't need to breathe or make any sound. You gotta be careful," Angel says, and the strangest thing is that Stephen isn't inclined to say "I know" or "you don't get to lecture me, monster", or "my father taught me that already". He doesn't even think of it. Instead, he just wants to continue what they have just done - fighting - against others, shoulder to shoulder, not against each other. Which is utterly and completely wrong, because this is Angelus the monster, and yet that is what he wants, at this moment.

"You know you were - you were good in there. I mean, normally I'd take you to a ballgame, or a museum, or - something," Angel continues, and Stephen, who doesn't know what a ballgame or a museum is, nonetheless grasps the most important thing. You were good in there. " But it's - it's good to know that you can handle yourself in a fight," Angel says, and makes a quick move towards Stephen. Stephen instinctively jumps back, but Angel doesn't follow, and Stephen understands. It wasn't meant as a serious attack. What then?

Perhaps it's just that Angel feels the same thing Stephen does. He, too, wants to continue what they started in there. But there are no other vampires around. So they have to do with each other. It's a game.

For the first time in this dimension, Stephen smiles. He doesn't think about it, he doesn't consider the enormity of betrayal this smile represents until later; at this moment, it's just a impulse of delight taking form.

"It's good to know you can do that, too," says Angel.

Accomplishment

Fred and Gunn in trouble again; wouldn't you know it. Connor tells himself the only reason he stays with them and keeps an eye on them is that they might actually stumble across a lead to A- to the drowned monster. Besides, they're human. So he can't kill them, even if they were the monster's friends and contributed to his father's death by luring Connor away.

He could leave them to die, though. He wouldn't have to do anything. So he really tries not to think about why he keeps checking up on them, despite Gunn's annoying lectures and Fred's conviction that she is the one protecting </i>him</i>, or why, when he sees a couple of vampires well in the process of making mince meat out of them, he hurries towards them. Gunn has managed to lose his axe to one of the vampires, who throws it at Fred, and Connor can't resist showing off a little. Instead of drawing Fred to safety, he catches the axe mid-air and throws it back to the vampire, perfect angle for a decapitation. The creature turns into dust, and the rush Connor feels comes out in a huge grin.

"Did you see that?" he asks Fred and Gunn. "Wasn't that cool?"

They're staring at him, and he can already hear the next lecture taking shape. Come on, he thinks, and lets the grin linger. Admit it. "That was cool!" he insists.

Angel would have admitted it at once, but that's a thought he allows himself even less than pondering why he keeps saving Fred and Gunn's lives.

Love

He wakes up, and she's lying next to him. Real, utterly real, not in a dream or a fantasy. Some of her scent is still on his own body. It all really happened. Also, the world didn't end, but that's really secondary.

"Morning," Connor says, and smiles at Cordelia, wishing this could last forever. Not the sex during the night, though that was great, but this, waking up next to her, the two of them together, knowing she loves him and trusts him, and all of it is real.

"Don't do that," she says, and he thinks she's teasing him; his smile gets even wider. He probably should say something smooth, something like the guys in the movies did he watched on tv when living at the Hyperion, but he can't think of a thing. He's too happy.

"Do what?"

"That. The look. The happy puppy look. Makes it harder."

Rebirth

"Top ten percentile is a big deal," says Mom, and Connor doesn't pretend to disagree. He feels giddy. It's probably because high school is really over now, and he didn't suddenly have a panic attack during tests, all those months of work and being called a nerd and asking Tracy to be patient were totally worth it. All the family talks at him at once, and for a moment, he tunes out, not listening to the words, just to the sound of their voices. He'll miss them once he gets to college.

Meanwhile, it's his official duty to tease them.

"Since it's my special day and I'm all brilliant and everything and I'm forced to spend at least a few more months with you freaks..."

"How mean," Aunt Jane interrupts, feigning shock.

"Um, I get to make the toast, OK? To family."

As Dad raises his glass to Connor, Connor is struck by a weird sensation of being watched. Just a for a second. Then he dismisses it. Of course he is; they're all watching him, and Mere will so get back to him for that freak comment. She wouldn't be his little sister otherwise.

Family, he thinks, and the giddiness never leaves his face.

Renewal

Weeks passed since he got his memories back, but when Angel suddenly stands in front of him, Connor is still unsure how to react. Or who to be. He decides to play it cool and stick with Connor Riley for a while; it's safer.

Also fun, unexpectedly, because Angel tells him all about a werewolf girlfriend, and Angel probably wouldn't if he knew Connor remembered. Plus he's so easy that way.

"There's some full-moon love, am I right? Fur flying."

" Huh?"

"So vampires really don't understand the concept of jokes," Connor says, dead-pan. Behind Angel, one of the girls who has classes with him and has been watching them ever since Angel showed up mouthes "boyfriend?" at him, and that's just too weird. But then, everyone here has met Connor's parents, and Angel is definitely too old to be another college student.

"I understand jokes. I was at the first taping of the Carol Burnett show. Tim Conway was on fire. It was special," Angel says, offended, and Connor decides to stop with the bs.

"I know you're my father."

Bad idea. Angel goes still and has that look again, that all out intense look he had when Connor first walked towards him at Wolfram and Hart's, and suddenly Connor is afraid to go there. Maybe it's chicken, but talking about the past, really talking about it would mean being the other him again, and he doesn't know how much of Connor Riley would be left if he allows that to happen. So he hastily says thank you and all but pleads to talk about something else, and Angel follows suit, asking him about internships and the like, and offering to help.

"Have you ever written a resume before? Ever?" asks Connor.

"No... but I have very nice handwriting."

So he's really going to let it go. And maybe this will work. Maybe he can hang around Angel without giving up his new life, his new self, that self unburdened by guilt.

"You girl," Connor says, and the dizzying relief becomes a smile that envelopes them both.

Tell the story of one of your past scars

Thu, 03 May 2007 11:47:38 GMT

Scars, right.

Due to the whole fast healing factor, I only have two which are pretty much invisible unless you know where to look, and I really don't want to talk about dying in the mall again, or about something pretty personal that isn't anyone's business.

In a way I guess super healing is one big cheat, and also really dangerous because sometimes you forget how fragile everyone else is. Sometimes I think people like me who don't have scars of our own, or nearly none, are like big lightning rods, channelling the wounds into everyone else instead. Jasmine could do that, only the other way around - she could take everyone else's wounds into herself and heal them. Maybe that's just the most extreme form of what we do to people. Everyone else gets scarred instead. When I was a child, I figured that was how it worked because my father didn't heal the way I did, and he kept aging - I thought he did it for me. One day I had to burn one of his wounds out with fire - it would have poisoned his flesh otherwise - and that was just a week after my arm got broken when we were hunting, but my arm had been fine for days. His wound - on his left leg - didn't heal until we did the cutting it open and burn it, and even then it took ages. When I saw the scar I thought it was mine. No, not in a "I feel guilty" way; I thought it was proof his trust in me was validated, that I could deal when something like that happened to him, and that in return him saving me, I had saved him. So what I actually felt was pride.

My father never gave me all the details on how we came to be together, just that it had been God's will, and one of Angelus' allies had somehow been instrumental in it. I got bits and pieces of the story later, from Justine, from Fred and Gunn. By the time I met Wesley, I knew it had been him, and that he had thought he was saving me from a prophecy (that's what Fred had said; Gunn had said something else, but he was pissed off at me at the time). We didn't exactly talk much - actually, we never talked at all in those months in the Hyperion - but I remember that I saw the scar on his neck and thought that he had gotten it because of me. And again, I didn't feel guilty: I thought that what happened to Wesley would somehow had been the payment that allowed my father and me being together, which made sense, because you always have to pay somehow. My father used to talk a lot about Abraham when he taught me the bible, back in Quortoth; I thought of how God had tested Abraham, had told Abraham to kill his son Isaac, slit his throat, and at the last moment, he had exchanged Isaac for a ram.

I remember thinking that Isaac and the ram must have felt pretty much the same way about God and Abraham both after that, and that I was immediately ashamed of the thought. So I pushed it away and avoided Wesley when I could afterwards.

There were only two times when that didn't work. One was when everyone tried to turn me against Jasmine. Nobody told me - which was pretty much the rule that year - but what made other people not love Jasmine anymore was getting in contact with her blood, or Cordy's. Like I said, nobody told me; instead, Angel just held me and Wesley took a knife and cut my chest so they could smear Cordy's blood in it. I had no idea what was going on, and not just because loving Jasmine for me was about her being my daughter, not about some kind of spell; they didn't explain what they were trying. So what I thought, at that moment, was that I had gotten the whole Isaac and ram comparison all mixed up; or maybe I hadn't, but what nobody told me was that Isaac and the ram could exchange roles if God wanted them to.

The other time wasn't that much later, when everything was breaking down, I could feel it was, but I tried to stop it after Jasmine had healed me, I tried to capture everyone and bring them back. Except that "capture" wasn't all I tried. When I had caught up with them, everyone except Angel, I took the sword I had and looked at Wesley, who was kneeling. We were in the tunners, under ground, but I cold see the scar at his throat far better than at any point in the past.

I remember thinking that it was my scar, that he had gotten it because of me, but somehow God hadn't wanted either of us, so maybe I should just bring it to an end, and maybe then the story would finally work out. So I raised the sword. And the story did work out. Because in the story, the voice of God finally intervened.

Jasmine's voice stopped me.

Would you ever kill a human being (or if you are not human - would you ever kill a being from your o

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 12:26:33 GMT

*locked from the eyes of the law and pretty much everyone who isn't a close friend or family*

You know what makes replying to this difficult? Not the human being part. I already know the answer to that one. The "own species" part.

When I grew up - both times - things were pretty simple. The way Connor Riley remembers it, Mom and Dad were against the death penalty, and self defense, or saving someone else from an immediate lethal threat, those were the only instances where you should kill someone. I grew up believing that, and I never had reason to doubt it until the mindwipe went away.

Things in Quortoth were pretty simple, too. As in: there were only two human beings around, and I'd never, ever kill my father. Everything else was a demon, and if it got close enough to be dangerous, killing it was the only thing to do, no questions asked.

Then I switched dimensions, and things started to spin out of control and got turned upside down. The first humans I met on my own were some guys trying to hurt a girl who didn't look like she could fight back. All humans. The first demons I met, vampires aside, were Lorne and Cordelia - in a half demon kind of way - , and they were trying to help me. Despite me, you know, trying to kill them. Plus there was the whole question as to what the hell I was. Other human beings didn't have the abilities I had, and you didn't have to be a genius to figure out that I got them because of my biological parents, who were vampires. Even my father said he did not know what I was, other than the bastard son of two demons. So did that make me human or demon?

I didn't want to be a demon, of course. So I tried to cling to what I knew, which meant that you didn't kill humans but anything demonic, vampires or otherwise, was fair game if it threatened someone; if not, like with Lorne and some of his clients, it was supposed to be a wait and see thing.

(Not killing anyone at all wasn't an option that occured to me then. I tried it after I got my memories back, after Sahjahn, and I kept it up for all of a year or so.)

During the time Angelus was loose, Lorne did a sanctuary spell in the Hyperion, which was supposed to make any kind of demonic violence impossible. The idea was to keep Angelus from slaughtering people in their sleep, not that he wouldn't wake them up and torture them a bit first anyway. Sure enough, he showed up after the spell was in effect, and I attacked him. The spell was strong enough to throw me down to the lobby. Which meant it had identified me as demon, not human.

I kept thinking then - and I still do: if I am not human, if I am, in fact, a demon, then what difference does it make whether I kill humans or demons? Why should I protect one species and hunt the other? (I guess the fact that the whole "protecting both" didn't occur as opposed to "hunting both" says something about me, too.) (Or maybe about how I was then. Maybe. I don't know how much difference there is now, when it gets down to it.)

But there had to be a difference. There had to be a line. Because if you can kill anyone, anyone at all, and it makes no difference, you will. Okay, not you as in all of you. But I think - I would. Not just because I can, or because I have so much practice, but because the whole thing, fighting, hunting, it's part of me. The longest I ever was without was when I was mindwiped, and after that not even a year.

The first time I caused the death of a human being, that was when I realized. What the line had to be. I didn't strike the lethal blow but I did everything else - kidnapped her, dragged her to the slaughter. So I did kill her, and I knew what I was doing, and that it was wrong. The point wasn't that she was human - the point was that she was innocent. She hadn't done anything to me or anyone else. It didn't matter whether I was human or a demon or both, killing her was wrong either way. I still did it, because I believed it was the only way to save my unborn daughter. It did save her, for all of a few weeks until -

Anyway. Yes, I would kill a human being. I would kill a demon. I try to limit it to demons who are busy attacking other people because I need to draw a line somewhere, and because there is no way I can bring back that girl, or the cop, or other innocent people who died because of me. But it doesn't make me less of a killer.

Write a fan letter

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 09:40:16 GMT

Dear Clint Eastwood,

first of alll, I wish you had gotten the Oscar for Letters of Iwo Jima. I mean, nothing against Scorsese, but The Departed was so not his best, plus it was a remake, whereas your film was one of the best ever.

Anyway, I'm a fan, both of the movies you directed and those you were playing in as an actor. I recently read that your next project is a film written by the guy who created Babylon 5, which is cool, but made me wonder: could you maybe postpone that and persuade Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to let you direct Indiana Jones IV? And maybe co-write the script? Because that's really urgent. Here's why you'd be ideal:

1) You would do it both as an action movie but also as a character piece, and you would have no problem coming up with a story that pays attention to the fact Harrison Ford is sixty or something and still make it cool and moving at the same time.

2) Dialogue! Don't let George anywhere near it. I think Harrison Ford would back you up on that one. You'd totally be able to stare Lucas & Spielberg down, too.

3) You wouldn't pull the kind of crap Steven Spielberg did in Temple of Doom when he replaced Marion with that blonde bimbo. I'm still mad about that one. Marion was cool and kicked butt and was so my imaginary girlfriend. ~~In fact double imaginary.~~

4) You could make Harrison Ford act again. I think he stopped sometime after Mosquito Coast, which sucks because he can. Perhaps you should send him Unforgiven as inspiration?

Also, I have an idea for the artifact Indy could be after. It could be something that leads to the rebirth of an awesome blue-haired goddess in a leather suit. She could take over for the action sequences and you could let Harrison do the exposition and character stuff.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, and best of luck with all your projects, no matter which ones you pick -

Yours,

Connor Riley

Weekend in Los Angeles (rp for Kara)

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:52:51 GMT

Getting a dose of something the cops called "fear gas" later when they explain about some lunatic from the local asylum who apparantly decided to crash Harry's birthday party, would have produced a least favourite memory even if nothing had actually happened. If he had just been stuck with hallucinations and a bad headache afterwards. But something did happen. Something real. Not dreamt, not hallucinated, real.

Connor can still remember the sudden smell of blood, and the realisation. That she was alive, that everything previous might have been a trick, fear made flesh, but not this. Not the stak going into her arm because she blocked it from going straight to her heart.

The other thing had been real, too, the secret Kara told him, and he has no idea how to handle either. He talks with Harry about the seeing Kara sired by Angelus and staking her part, which help but also leaves him with some unsettling realisations. So he decides to go to Los Angeles. There are other reasons, too - all those recent attempts by someone to kill Darla, for one - but mainly he thinks he owes Kara a longer explanation than "I'm so sorry" and "Cordy saw it, too".

She wanted him to be "genuinenly nice" to his parents, so he gets into Connor Riley mode once he arrives at the Hyperion and makes sure he's not alone with either. He can do nice. He can. So he does what Connor Riley would have done for Mom and brings a present for Darla, whom he figures must be stir-crazy by now, a collection of poetry by Pablo Neruda because her friend the annoying Immortal had said it reminded him of her, and a list of new security systems available with Osborn money for Angel. High tech isn't heroic, but onsidering the assassination attempts so far have been non-supernatural, it just might be more useful than magic.

He keeps up being just Connor Riley - who would never have staked his sister even if he had thought she was a vampire, because Connor Riley wasn't a psychotic raised in a hell dimension - until he manages to slip away to the roof, hoping Kara caught the signal (and remembered the bit about the roof being a good place to be, with and without turtles). Hoping she'll show up, full stop.

On the way up, he studiously avoids the suite that used to be Jasmine's, the room which used to be Cordy's (who has a new one now), and the one where there are still a lot of clothes from people who died to nourish the Devourer. He remembers bringing them there a little too well.

If you could pick anyone in the world, alive or dead, to be your parents, who would it be?

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:32:09 GMT

Okay, there are two ways of answering this, love declarations or rants, and I don't want do do either.

Also? The whole question is wrong. If I could choose, I wouldn't be me.

And how the hell am I supposed to know how other people were/are as parents? You look at some families and you think "oh, great" or "wow, they're so screwed up", but as long as you're not part of that family, you have no way of really knowing, do you. But even if. Even if I could know - look, I already have more than my share of parents, and I don't want to choose between them, so why should I want to pick even more?

*locked from everyone but Harry*

Sometimes I think you pick those who need you the most, if that makes the best sense. Mom and Dad loved me - they were made to - and sometimes I wonder why this Cyvus Vail guy picked them to be my parents. Maybe they wanted another child, maybe Angel just asked for two great people, which they were, I don't know. But now I remember them as my parents, and if I could wish them back to life, of course I would. They weren't geniuses or superheroes or anything, and they weren't saints, either; I guess if I had come clean and told them the truth instead of ~~getting them killed~~ doing what I did, they'd have been angry, they'd have felt violated by the whole mindwipe thing, and once they'd have gotten over that, if they had, Mom would have insisted on group threrapy. And self help books. She was really into those. Dad would have - I don't know. Probably wondered if they could hire someone to sue Wolfram and Hart, not because of money but because it was the principle of the thing.

I miss them.

But you know, their lives were pretty good without me. Actually way better without me, at least during the last year. Mere as an only child, I don't know how that would have turned out, except she must have been, pre-memory wipe, so I figure that would have been fine as well.

My father, now. I know people think I'm brainwashed or something when it comes to him, but I was with him for seventeen years, and I think that's more than anyone else can say. Even his wife and his other family, centuries ago. And so I think that gives me the right to say I knew him best. My father - Daniel Holtz - he needed me. I don't mean for vengeance, though obviously, yes. I'm not blind, okay? Or for survival. He kept me alive during the first years before it became a mutual thing. But you see, what happened to his first family, and the quest, that had become everything, and he had given everything else up - so he couldn't let anyone in anymore before ~~God gave me to him~~ ~~he stole me~~ ~~God gave~~ we ended up in Quortoth. I guess Justine came close - I couldn't ask - but ultimately, he left her behind. And then there were our seventeen years together, and he loved me, and I loved him. He wasn't alone anymore. He did let me in. That was such a major thing for him, and there is no way I could wish that away from him, or him away from me.

I miss him, too.

So I remember an entire life with Mom and Dad and Mere, and I remember an entire life with my father, and none of them actually produced me in the biological sense. You could still count the time I spent with my biological parents and it wouldn't even add up to a year, I think. Cordelia once gave me a present - a dvd with a film on it that showed Angel and a baby. Actually, Angel, Wesley, Cordy, Fred and Gunn with a baby. They're all happy and goofy like you wouldn't believe, and I can't watch that film without feeling about a hundred things at once, some of which make me sappy like a wet towel and some make me want to smash the tv. Darla isn't there on the film, of course; she was dead. Still, sometimes I wonder. What it would have been like. To be that child, still growing up in the Hyperion - I would be what, six or so? Sometimes I want that. Sometimes I want that desperately.

The thing is, I can never quite believe that baby was me. Except for one scene in the entire movie. Which is when the baby starts to cry, and Angel gets into game face for some reason, and the baby stops crying. Because - I remember that. The sense of it at least. I remembered when I first saw his face again. His true face. Which isn't the game face, and it's not the human one, it's both, one shifting into the other.

Both.

I never saw Darla as a vampire ~~weird time travel occasions excluded~~; when I saw her the first time, she was dead and I thought I was going crazy. But I never doubted it was her, either. She doesn't need the vampire thing to be - well, her. I can't imagine her raising me at all, either in Quortoht or in an L.A. suburb, or in the Hyperion, and yet I can imagine her pregnant, which is all kinds of weird, I guess. Sometimes I think I don't get her at all, that she's alien in a way Angel isn't, and sometimes I think I understand her way better than I want to, but either way - I can't look at her without knowing she died for me. How can you ever be possibly worthy of that? It drives me crazy.

They're not normal parents; they're not the parents who need me most. (They need a child, which isn't necessarily me. Say Wesley suddenly comes forward and declares he switched babies before my father took me, and that their son Connor is somewhere in Los Angeles as a child and I'm some changeling he got elsewhere to fool Holtz - I think that would make the difference to them. Not that they'd suddenly stop talking to me or something, of course not, but they'd feel differently, and I think after a while, they would stop bothering.) And they're definitely the only parents I hated for being my parents, for being their son, when I was a child and a good while after. But even then I was curious about them in a way I never was about Mom and Dad, who were just Mom and Dad, or Father, who was beginning and end, but you didn't question him, you didn't wonder about him. I never stopped wondering about them, being curious - okay, make that obsessing - though the hate factor kept changing, obviously. Now I'm an adult, and I have adult responsibilities, so it's far too late to be a child anyway. Anyone's child.

Last night I dreamt they were both dead, truly dead, and I thought: I can't live like that.

They're not the parents who need me. But they're the parents I need.

What is the biggest mistake you ever made in a relationship?

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:12:15 GMT

Wow. Is that supposed to be a trick question? I mean, define "biggest", "mistake" and "relationship". "Big" as in had bad results for the relationship? The other person in the relationship? Me? The rest of the world? And mistake as in "wrong informed decision" or the "if I only had known..." kind or whatever? Is "relationship" a romance only thing or not?

I'm going with not, I guess. And I don't know about biggest, but it definitely was the worst. I think. See, I'll never know what other people saw when they looked at Jasmine. Except that whatever it was, it couldn't have been what she looked like to me, because when they didn't see it anymore, they freaked out and hated her. And she knew that would happen.

But what she didn't know was that I had seen it all the time. She tried to keep it a secret from me, too; that's why she didn't tell me why she had to hide Cordelia, or how Fred had managed to ~~infect~~ change Angel. She must have believed I would hate her too, that she needed her power with me, and she never did. She was my daughter.

So - if I had told her. I mean, it took me a while to figure it out, that the way I loved her wasn't the way everyone else loved her, and that they saw something different, when they looked at her, but I did figure it out. I didn't tell her. Really, I didn't want to be different from anyone else around her. I wanted to be part of all that, that perfect peace and happiness everyone else was feeling, and I thought if I faked it long enough, I would be. I'd have done anything to make it true.

Here's what I should have done instead. I should have shown her that I didn't love her because I had to, that I could make my own decisions no matter what she said, but that this had nothing to do with not loving her. She only knew those two states, you see. Either people worshipped her, or they hated her and turned against her, like Fred had done the moment she got in touch with Jasmine's blood.

When she sent me to capture Fred, Angel, Wesley and Gunn. That's when I should have done it. I should have said: No. Let them go. And let us go, you and me. Let's leave Los Angeles together, we can change the world much better if we travel through it, much better than if you rule it, and I'll be there for you. You don't have to -

Anyway. Perhaps it wouldn't have worked. She was a Power that Was long before she became my daughter. Perhaps worship was the only form of love she could have understood, and the whole free will thing wouldn't have mattered to her. But the point is, I should have tried. And I didn't.

Instead, I lied to her and everyone else until it was too late.

Timelines

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:44:53 GMT

Time has always a been flexible thing where Connor was concerned. The summer after Connor arrived in Los Angeles, Fred tried to calculate his age. She had kept track of her years in Pylea through her scribblings on the wall; it had been her link to sanity, she said, and asked him whether Holtz had not done something similar. In truth Holtz had at first, had tried to keep adherence to a calendar, but Connor had been too young to remember by the point his father had given it up.

There were events, though, that he could use to differentiate the years. The year he first managed to track his father down within three days was a different year from the one they found the swamp with the poisonous flowers, and that in turn had been at least much later than the time Connor had made his first spear, and so on. After some recounting and a lot of frowning, Fred had worked out an equation that said he was seventeen years old, going on eighteen in November.

Fred was a mathematical genius, but to this day, Connor has no idea whether she got it right.

Cyvus Vail, who created one set of Connor’s memories, was very precise about years and dates. It helps keeping the two different timelines in his head without going crazy, though sometimes, they blur: dates, months, days, hours, those are for events which never happened. They are sharp-edged and fitting to exact moments the way photos do in an album. He is four years and seven months on the day his sister Mere is born, and it is two o’clock in the afternoon of the following day when his father brings him to the hospital to watch the new baby through the glass protecting it and the other babies. Connor stretches out a hand which presses against the glass, frustrated, and leaves a very visible thumb print because he has been eating a peanut butter sandwich before they got here. The hospital watches all show 2: 32 exactly when this happens, except it never did.

The other memories are not associated with dates in his mind; not just the Quortoth ones. He has no idea on which day he crossed dimensions, but he remembers the taste of ice cream on Sunny’s lips when she kissed him, and the sense of the sun setting down while she did. He doesn’t know on which day his father died, either, except it was two days after that, but what he can still remember is the way the stars and the neon light from the pier reflected in brittle fragments on the dark sea when Gunn and Fred talked about Angel going after Holtz behind his back. It was autumm when Cordelia returned to the Hyperion, but he doesn’t know which week; what he remembers instead is the way her hand felt when taking his and the sound her feet made on the pavement when she ran away with him.

It’s a wild mixture now. Sometimes he remembers the days on which things happened, and sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he thinks “September” when recalling a drive to Monterey, an encounter in a hotel room and a flight to Boston; sometimes he recalls anger, curiosity, the taste of whiskey and intoxication.

Perhaps his two timelines are still running, and never became one. Perhaps he just keeps crossing from one to the other and back, some kind of construct of different selves. Doesn’t really matter, though, except when both timelines somehow fail to produce memories. Recently, someone asked him what he did on 9/11. Connor thought, blanked out and concluded that Cyvus Vail, sorcerer extraordinaire, did not cover that one, so he made a story up.

Later, he went back to the old equation Fred had given him, which included his actual birth date, and realized he had not even been born then. So perhaps somewhere, there was a third time line, covering the live of that baby on the photo Cordelia had, the photo that showed herself and Angel. Supposedly, there is a world without shrimp out there, so presumably there is one where that baby is still a child and actually wearing that hokey t-shirt Angel says he bought.

Perhaps. If there is, Connor can’t remember it, and he doesn’t want it, not really, because if he did, it would mean giving up his other two timelines, and whether they consist of dates or sensations, they mean too much to ever want a third.

Got tagged

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 07:10:08 GMT

Guilt	What is yours?	Explain yourself
Culinary:	Pizza Hawaii, if you ask Harry	I still don't know what's supposed to be wrong about pineapples on a pizza
Literary:	Star Wars fanfiction	I came across it on the internet and got hooked. Though I still think the Enterprise-D has a chance against the Death Star
Audiovisual:	Lara Croft: Tomb Raider	Angelina Jolie
Musical:	Sometimes I sing in the shower	Have you ever heard me sing?
Celebrity:	Clint Eastwood	I want to be that cool and working if I ever make it to 76

If you want to complete this same Quiz, Its HERE.

Weekend Ponderings

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 11:47:05 GMT

Between Harry in California to see Kara and Evan in New York with his mother, Connor had a lot of unexpected free time at his hand during the weekend. Talking with Cordelia about the Lex issue helped a bit, but he still found himself somewhere between anger, disappointment and renewed attacks of self loathing.

It wasn't that he was in a position to judge. Between sending Angel under the ocean to avenge Daniel Holtz and bringing an innocent girl to be sacrificed so his daughter could be born, he understood the motivation all too well. But that was just it. He understood because he was tainted the same way.

Connor found himself wandering through the house Harry had bought after discovering he had a child, and coming across various toys left from Evan's last visit. A little truck, a bear, a plush penguin. The texture of plastic and artificial vibres on his skin when he picks them up and holds them is alien, utterly alien, all of a sudden. Perhaps because Vail didn't include artifiicial tactile memory of toys, or because it somehow sums up what's at stake.

After putting the toys on shelves, Connor decides to go to Bullock's office. The man won't be there, but a staple of bills and letters will, and he can do some unpaid overtime work, which means he will stop thinking what he's thinking right now.

Last year, Harry lost a friend and nearly died himself because of a vampire playing games with Connor. This year, he nearly lost another friend because Connor's mother wanted payback. It was all very well to rant about responsibility to Darla on the phone, or to Cordelia on livejournal, but what would be the truly responsible thing to do? Now that the stakes were so infinitely higher because there was a child involved?

Remove the taint, of course.

Perhaps that was what those dreams of killing Kara had been about, too. To show Connor something. No, it's not that he's the only one responsible for Kara's state, though he guesses in the end, he bears more responsibility than Lex Luthor, but maybe he's the one who can end it, only not in a lethal way. Kara told him more than once she wished she could cut him out of her life, but she couldn't, because of Darla and Angel.

Consider this: can anyone reasonably say Harry and his son would not be better off without Aurelians in their lives? And: if Connor was out of the picture, how long before Harry would get back together with Kara? And he would not dump her again. He loves her. She's not sixteen anymore. He'd know what's at stake. Kara would finally have what she wanted, a devoted boyfriend/husband, a family of her own.

And don't have any kids yourself. That Larkin poem. They fuck you up, your mum and dad...

How long before Natalie figures out that Harry's boyfriend is a lightning rod for all kind of trouble in addition to being someone with a psycho family and a bona dide sociopath, endangering her son? And if she figures it out, won't she do the responsible and sensible thing and deny Harry any more access rights, and won't that be the worst thing, worse than the death of Harry's father, because no pain is worse than losing a child, and won't Connor be the one responsible if he stays?

He's relieved when he arrives at Bullock's shabby little office. But the stench of cigars is fresh. The man himself is there. Drunk, as it turns out.

"What the hell are you doing here, Riley?"

Spare time and some more work, Connor says, and Bullock looks at him with bleary eyes.

"Shouldn't you be with your girlfriend, kid? What kind of retard spends Saturday at the office?"

"It's boyfriend," Connor says, "and I'm just following your example, boss."

"Watch your mouth," Bullock grumbles, but when he lights up a new cigar, he offers one to Connor as well.

"I don't smoke."

"God, your generation is so wasting being young," Bullock says, and then remains silent while Connor starts typing. After the third page, the former cop says:

"Did I ever tell you about saving Jim Gordon's life?"

It turns into an afternoon of tales about the Gotham police department and getting fired not for something that deserved firing, of which Bullock apparantly has done plenty, but for something he doesn't regret. By the end, Bullock is so drunk he can't talk anymore, and can't go back to his place, either. Connor can't bring himself to leave the man in his office, not in this state, so he takes him home, puts him under a shower which the drunken Bullock nonetheless manages to sleep through, and lets him sleep in the guest room.

Sunday morning arrives, and he has an overweight 40something with a hangover to deal with.

"How come you could carry me anyway?" Bullock asks suspiciously. "You look like you couldn't carry anything that's heavier than those pansy pamphlets you read when you think I'm not looking."

"Vitamins," says Connor, and makes breakfeast. If he's honest, the whole caring for the boss thing is very much due to this helping him not to ponder that possibility which is ever more clearly on his mind, but not exclusively. It feels comfortable, caring for grumpy elder men; familiar.

"Listen, Riley, whatever I said yesterday, I was drunk, okay? I make up stories when I'm drunk."

Connor can't resist. "You mean that whole part where I'm making you consider switching teams wasn't true?"

Bullock looks so horrified that he can't keep it up and apologizes for the crack.

"You're lucky I don't fire you," Bullock says, but he eats all his breakfeast, and after putting on his coat, he turns to Connor and remarks: "Just one thing, Riley. You won't get a raise for this. And for God's sake, get a life next weekend!"

After he left, Connor realizes that the house is full of cold cigar smoke now, and out of bagels. He spends the next hours with all windows open and a vaccum cleaner, and in between comes to the conclusion that vacuum cleaners double nicely as weights to lift for training. Something still lingers afterwards, so he takes out the dogs for a run. By the time it's early evening, he comes back, feeds the dogs, orders a pizza and starts a book. The temptation he doesn't want to think about is still there, but he's waiting for Harry to come home, which he supposes is a kind of answer.

Fragile

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 20:13:09 GMT

All bodies are fragile.

It's a lesson Stephen learns very early, and it is one of the most important lessons. No matter how thick their hide, no matter their agility, no matter how sharp their claws and teeth, somewhere, at some points of their bodies, they are vulnerable. Fragile, even.

"Find out their vulnerable spot," his father says, "and you can break them. This is how we survive."

Quortoth offers most of its species in herds, so the knowledge gained can be used again and again. There is one exception. Stephen and his father are a species of two, and not even that. Growing up, Stephen realises their breaking points are not the same. His skin heals quickly, bruises and cuts fading, and he can fall from great heights without any repercussions. His father, on the other hand, carries cuts for weeks, and they leave scars. As Stephen grows older, taller, stronger, his father grows older, slower, and ever more fragile. It is not that he complains; that would be unthinkable. But his breath grows shorter when they have to run. One of the creatures he handled without a problem when Stephen's hands had not been able to wield a blade manages to deliver a sting. He orders Stephen to cut out the poisoned flesh, to burn it clean with a knife held into the fire first, and while this prevents an infection, it also causes him to lose consciousness and to drag one leg behind for two months.

"It is not Quortoth," he replies when Stephen asks. "It is age."

Age, then, is the most terrifying foe of all. It renders his father more vulnerable by the day. Watching him, Stephen observes an ever increasing assortment of weaknesses. When he is very quiet and focuses all his senses, he imagines he can even hear his father's heartbeat losing that strong steady rhythm it used to have. His father, who is strength, wisdom and the justification of his existence, as God gave Stephen to him to console him for the loss of his other children and to avenge their fate, his father who is everything to him becomes the most fragile creature in Quortoth, and it terrifies Stephen in a way nothing else ever has.

One day, his father nearly falls into a nest of slugs. Later, Stephen decides to wipe them out so it never happens again. The creatures are sentient, and capable of speech. They mock Stephen even as they run and flee, taunt him with the fact that he will never be able to get rid of them entirely. Imprisoned, demon child, destroyer, but not us, oh no! they sing. Worlds are ours!

It could be an empty boast, but it gets him thinking. All bodies are fragile. All have their vulnerable spots. What is a world, after all, if not one giant body? His father had called Quortoth a prison more than once, explaining that the demon who allowed him to get here had sworn nobody else would be able to follow, or indeed return. But there had been an opening, once. There could be another.

The slugs, at any rate, have their own kind of fragility. He knows their breaking points, alright. He'll make them prove their boast about knowing the way to other worlds, or he'll kill them, every single one. Either way, he will save his father.

It never occurs to him that fragility is not limited to bodies. But then, Stephen was broken a long time ago.

From everyone

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 09:36:36 GMT

The Everything Test

There are many different types of tests on the internet today. Personality tests, purity tests, stereotype tests, political tests. But now, there is one test to rule them all.

Traditionally, online tests would ask certain questions about your musical tastes or clothing for a stereotype, your experiences for a purity test, or deep questions for a personality test.We're turning that upside down - all the questions affect all the results, and we've got some innovative results too! Enjoy :-)

Personality

You are more logical than emotional, more concerned about self than concerned about others, more religious than atheist, more loner than dependent, more workaholic than lazy, more rebel than traditional, more engineering mind than artistic mind, more cynical than idealist, more leader than follower, and more extroverted than introverted.

As for specific personality traits, you are adventurious (100%), romantic (86%).

Stereotypes
College Student	75%
Old Geezer	50%
Prep	46%

Life Experience
Sex	23%
Substances	22%
Travel	32%

Politics
Your political views would best be described as Socialist, whom you agree with around 100% of the time.

Socioeconomic
Your attitude toward life best associates you with Working Class. You make more than 0% of those who have taken this test, and 77% less than the U.S. average.

If your life was a movie, it would be rated PG.
By the way, your hottness rank is 62%, hotter than 88% of other test takers.

TAKE THE TEST
brought to you by thatsurveysite