Chapter Text
This log was written by Zatanna Zatara
[Zatanna] would have been surprised if she knew that I was the one to present her log. Clark should have even though he wasn’t close, hell even Bruce would have been better. She would have wanted something flashy. Something magical or whimsical. Maybe even some words backward to add flavor. I’m not giving her that. Zatanna was an asshole dressed up in sparkly spandex and fishnets. She was also helpful. To me, she was like that one lady in the office who would prattle on and on but would be willing to help you with anything. I would call her a friend but she was both more and less than the word. It doesn’t do her justice. Zatanna needs a better word. But there isn’t one. The only one that begins to represent her in any way is her own name since it is the only thing that can even begin to describe her.
Foreword written by Selina Marie Kyle-Wayne
All logs donated by the Wayne Estate
Around the log are various items of Zatara, including her famous magic wand and top hat.
November 30,
Have you ever been indirectly called a fuckup by your parent?
My dad was all I had- I was all he had too. It isn’t surprising then that I cared so, so much about how he felt.
I didn’t do anything he didn’t like when I was young. Bed at 8, picking up my toys, dishes done, and clothes folded.
My dad was a very smart man and he expected only perfection.
But I’m not perfect.
I never can be.
I hate reading those words. I hate that they’re right.
I want to be what my father desperately wished I could.
I remember one of my first shows, I couldn’t figure out the spell, and I… I just couldn’t. It was an easy one too, not even the difficult ones that take years to learn.
My dad did it and kept the show going.
I was forced to practice the trick every night after that until I was able to master it. It took me a long time. Night after night of sitting there staring at a box or a hat trying to make that stupid puppet appear and disappear.
There was a kid in my class that had been at the show. He made fun of me for not being able to pull the stupid puppet out of the hat. For not being able to shuffle a deck right. Anything and everything. The trick I wasn’t able to do, he finally got to it in his little taunts and I couldn’t take it anymore.
I did what I couldn’t do that night.
I made him disappear.
When it was done, no one could find him. Minutes of searching turned into an hour, then the entire school day was gone, and no one could find him.
Dad came and searched with everyone else. No one saw him tap a supply closet and whisper the magic words to bring him back.
All they saw and heard was his cry when the kid finally saw something instead of the constant pitch hell he had been in.
He babbled. Nonsense at first, begging for his mom, his baby sister, anyone. Later they asked who did it to him and he said me.
I was expelled of course.
My dad looked at me so…
…
You don’t forget that kind of look from someone you look up to so much.
He could have hit me and it would never hurt as much as that look.
It ate me up inside. Enough that even as a grown woman I can’t get that look out of my soul.
It’s burned into me like a screen being left on for too long.
He brought it up once in a while. He didn’t think that the comments about it would hurt, he saw it as a mistake that needed to be corrected.
I saw it as the worst thing I had ever done and bringing it up only made me do worse in my own eyes.
My hands would drop the wand or I would stutter if I even thought about it.
What I saw was my father’s scorn at my own actions and that I failed him. I wasn’t worthy of being a Zatara.
I saw something a while ago. It was a repost with the original person’s name cropped out. But they said something about how it's odd that you can have such complex feelings about a parent. I love my father and yet I couldn’t wait to move out of his home. I never wanted to talk to him but I never wanted to leave his arms when he hugged me. I wanted to be everything he wanted me to be but I also wanted to rebel.
That was my relationship with my father.
Then he disappeared and after he came back, he died.
How do you feel about a person like that? How do you feel about their death?
He isn’t even fully dead really. Becoming Doctor Fate is as close to death as a man like my father would allow.
It’s wrong to think this. I’m supposed to love my father for all he is and mourn the man I used to know.
I can even go talk to him right now if I wanted. I know it would only make me feel worse.
It’s not him. I need to get that through my thick skull. My father is dead. Dead. Giovanni Zatara is no more. There is only Fate.
What I have left of my dad are my own memories of which I can only think of the worst first and fragments of things he’s told me of his past.
It's weird to think about it but I don’t know a lot about my dad. I know he’s old. Older than a dad usually is. He’s actually older than a great-grandparent usually is.
When you can perform magic, you can stretch your life to more than double a normal human's. Then again, he isn't human.
My father has taught me many things with his stories and one is that it never is worth it to stretch your life longer than it should be.
I bet Fate would agree.
I wonder if Doctor Fate has a similar relationship with him. Does he hate and love the host he inhabits? Does he even hear my father’s thoughts?
Does he think of me?
This is why I have a rabbit.
I think I would be lost without Pocus. He saw me starting to cry and immediately hopped over and comforted me.
I almost debated hanging out with John. There is quite literally nothing worse I could have done than hang out with John when I feel like that.
I love him very much but how do I say this?
John is a man held together by cigarettes and magic. Too much emotion and he goes on a week-long bender where he forgets his, mine, and everyone else's name. That's why he has both of ours tattooed on. No literally, mine is above his- never mind.
Maybe I like it that way though. It keeps me from talking too much about things I don’t really want to talk to other people about.
Dinah was right, I should see the damn therapist.
If she asks me how I feel about seeing my dad’s corpse every day, I’m walking out.
January 8th,
Therapy was a good idea.