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sapphicwhxre · 3 years

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slumber party

♡ pairing: pansy parkinson x reader x ginny weasley

♡ summary: you’re dating draco, but pansy & ginny want you bad.

♡ song: slumber party ─ ashnikko ft. princess nokia

♡ warnings: my third person narration hyping up the reader af cause you’re THAT BITCH, not much plot, threesome, f. oral, fingering, scissoring, hickies, spit kink, rough sex, highkey poly vibes, sexy fucking seductress reader, everyone’s a switch leaning towards dom, face riding, kinky ass makeout, breast play + sucking, clit stuff, biting, think i got it all but lmk

HAPPY LESBIAN VISIBILITY DAY❣️

neither pansy nor ginny could comprehend why you were with draco. good-looking and rich, but an outstanding douchebag. . . there were better and, for someone like you, easily attainable options. yet you chose him. better options, better people; people like pansy and ginny.

I’m not shy, I’ll say it

I’ve been picturing you naked

I’m a little faded

You look like a fuckin’ paintin’

Big doe eyes, amazin’

She’s everything I’ve been prayin’

My heart palpitation

She looks like the type to break it

while you were out with pretty boy malfoy, ginny joined pansy in her prefect dorm with chocolate frogs and a whole lot of firewhiskey. the girls were getting bat-shit drunk and having the time of their lives when you ─ ethereal as ever ─ walked into the dorm, having heard ‘the weird sisters’ playing from outside the door. “you two had fun, i’m assuming?” you laughed upon entering.

“that is a gorgeous dress,” ginny complimented. her words rolled off her tongue, she was clearly buzzed. both the girls found you jaw-dropping, velvet dress clinging to your body, eye makeup bringing out your irises so fucking well. a work of art, a fucking heartthrob right before their eyes. you were that girl, the one boys pretended not to notice when she walked by for the sake of their girlfriend. you were their dream girl and pansy finally had enough.

“but you would look so much better if it was thrown on the floor.”

Me and your girlfriend playin’ dress up at my house

I gave your girlfriend cunnilingus on my couch

She cute, kawaii, hentai boobies, that excites me

I think she really likes me, asked politely, can I (woo-hoo)

Slumber party, slumber party

“what am i, some doll to play dress up with now?” you teased, walking closer to the two girls. your stunning best friends beside your stuck-up boyfriend; the choice was sinfully obvious. “or undress, i ‘spose, since that’s what you want.” the long overdue dreams were coming true as your dress was unzipped and it fell to your ankles.

lips glossed like a barbie doll, body like one too ─ how in merlin’s name was it possible for someone to be so cute and hot at the same time? “slumber parties do usually have dress-up, don’t they?” you hummed, now walking past them and into pansy's closet. you walked out in one of her lingerie sets, her smaller bust making yours look even plumper. “draco won’t mind, get over here.”

the girls didn’t need a second prompt, they were enthralled. pansy’s eyes went dark like her hair and ginny’s cheeks went red like hers. malfoy couldn’t possibly mind, not when it was so clear who you really liked. “lay down,” ginny commanded while pansy raked her eyes down your figure. “spread your legs and take those pretty tits out of that lovely thing, k?”

Uh, it’s getting hot in here

I’m the Nelly in the party with some rocks for ears (so hot in here)

I’m a slave for you, baby, Ms. Britney Spears

I’m a Clover, she a Toros, bring it on for cheers

And I'm sexy like Christina when I dip it low

Not an H-town girl, but I rodeo

Yippee-ki-yay, welcome to the show

It’s an all-girl party, clothing optional

“what’re you waiting for?” you batted your eyes at the both of them. you’d obeyed ginny faster than they had time to process and you were seeping set through your lace. “i want my girls to come fuck me.” wrapped around your finger, but ginny and pansy couldn’t give less of a fuck; anything for you.

like slaves for an seductress, they were drawn to your body, ready to do whatever you asked of them and vice-versa. gryffindor ginny and slytherin pansy, best friends, both enamored with a y/h who wanted nothing but filth tonight. “i’ve wanted to do this for so long,” ginny moaned shamelessly, shoving clothing away from your pussy. pansy’s hands squeezed your breasts roughly and started to toy with your nipples.

“how’s this any fair if you two ‘ve got clothes on?” you complained just as they were about to dive into you. exchanging glances and realising you were right, clothing was discarded. they admired each other and both blushed heavy at your lustful gaze on them.

“c’mon now, darlings, we’ve only got all night.”

Me and your girlfriend playin’ dress up at my house

I gave your girlfriend cunnilingus on my couch

She cute, kawaii, hentai boobies, that excites me

I think she really likes me, asked politely, can I (woo-hoo)

Slumber party, slumber party

it was easily like wildest dreams had come to life. ginny’s tongue licked teasing stripes all over your pussy and pansy’s fingers enveloping your tits. your breasts were being caressed, nipples pinched and flicked, and folds being lapped through while you moaned like your life depended on it. giving up her teasing and becoming desperate for your taste, ginny’s lips latched onto your clit, sucking lightly and teasing your entrance with her fingers.

lips finding yours and nipping at any contact she got, pansy kissed you, saliva mixing and wetting your skin. her mouth travelled to your neck, sucking harsh marks and found your assaulted breasts to start kitten licking. “want more, bunny?” pansy taunted, knowing you couldn’t speak through your moans. ginny was finger fucking you, pansy was painting your skin with purple bites. “‘s all right, these are far too pretty not to devour.”

she attached to your nipple, giving the other one attention while she sucked harshly, making a popping noise when she alternated between the two. “taste so good,” ginny moaned onto your pussy between licks and sucks. her fingers had no mercy, digging deep up into you and curling and pumping. “did you expect anything else?” pansy laughed, agreeing as she tasted your tits over and over again. your legs trembled and your moans were bordering screams.

“pretty girl’s gonna cum, you wanna see, pans?”

My girl look like Wednesday Addams

Eyes go black when she orgasms

Hide your back, she likes to stab them

My butt cheeks, she likes to grab ‘em

Matching pajama, birthday suits

Her spit tastes just like Juicy Fruit

She do that thing she usually do

Spell my name with her tongue, like (uh huh)

dark bliss shot your eyes and you came hard. pansy’s eyes widened as she watched intently, ginny’s cherry red lips and tongue lapping it up. white liquid dropped from ginny’s chin; the best part was how unashamed you were, such a fucking slut for your girls. “switch places, loves,” you breathed, actually giggling as you barely gave yourself time to recover from the orgasm. “‘m not the only one who’s going to cum tonight.”

pansy crawled over your body, bare arse heavenly looking. ginny did the same, putting her cunt over your face, soaked with arousal, just as pansy sat hers onto yours. sighs and groans came from all three of you and you were slick with the purity of it. pansy’s hips rocked against you, clit rubbing deliciously against yours. it throbbed for you, sensitive and hungry. you went to work on ginny’s pussy, grabbing her arse for control.

“y/n!” she cried out, grasping your hair to support herself. it was like you were spelling out party words all over her core. her stomach knotted and butterflies erupted, your muffled groans and pansy’s fast moans fueling her need to cum. she and pansy bucked against you, both eager to finish all over you. ginny went first and your fingers pressed into her skin while you opened wide for her cum; then came you and pansy, spilling heavy onto the bed beneath you.

the girls made their way next to you, twirling your hair with adoration and breathing heavily. you kissed them both, tasting of candy and sweet cum. your chests pressed against each other as you did so, moaning softly and frenching amongst each other. a mixture of saliva and juices dripped from your lips, into pansy’s mouth. her lips upturned, enjoying the hot taste of it, and she separated them close to ginny’s. ginny opened her mouth to take her cum and your and pansy’s spit, swallowing thickly.

Me and your girlfriend playin’ dress up at my house

I gave your girlfriend cunnilingus on my couch

She cute, kawaii, hentai boobies, that excites me

I think she really likes me, asked politely, can I (woo-hoo)

Slumber party, slumber party

bodies now explored, new territory discovered. you’d given yourself to pansy and ginny like you never had before and you fucking loved it. they could ask politely to have you, but there was no more question of who y/n l/n desired. firewhiskey scent heavy, candy sweet kisses, and sex on pansy’s silk sheets told the secrets of your slumber party.

I’m shy. . .

I’m so shy. . .

Hahaha

better options, better people; you had ginny and pansy tonight.

───♡

#pansy parkinson #ginny weasley #ginsy #pansy parkinson x reader #ginny weasley x reader #pansy parkinson imagine #ginny weasley imagine #pansy parkinson smut #ginny weasley smut #ginsy x reader #ginsy smut #ginny x pansy #pansy x ginny #harry potter #harry potter series #harry potter x reader #hogwarts x reader #wlw #sapphic

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carnistcervine · 4 years

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Aang and Raava are Separate AU

(AU name WIP)

So a while ago I saw this art. And I was like, d’aww. Then it inspired me to make this AU, and I’ve finally written out all the ideas I have for it.

Lemme just have mah mama Raava ‘kay?

-Quick note for this AU, Raava and Vaatu basically have the same powers. So, she also has an insane spirit laser. And where Vaatu can cause emotional distress to the point of hostility in others, Raava has a pacifying aura. I mean, it's possible that Raava also has these abilities in canon, but if she does, she doesn't use them.

-Raava could already sense a grave danger looming over the horizon when Sozin left Roku to die.

-However she remained idle as Aang was born into the world.

-Unlike Aang, she noticed the subtle changes in the people of the Fire Nation, however, once again she did not interfere.

-Raava has been idle since Wan's eventual death, and the world had managed to get along without her direct interference.

-So when Aang runs away and ends up frozen solid, it's a wake-up call for Raava.

-When Aang and Appa sink below the waves, she becomes desperate, her Avatar is about to die before he can complete his destiny. She cannot allow this. Raava takes over freezing a sphere of air around them, she curls around her Avatar and expends her power sending him and his friend into stasis.

-Raava watches over Aang for a hundred years. She would be with him for all his lifetimes...

-When Katara comes across the globe that rose from the water, she doesn't notice the creepy white spirit also trapped in the ice. But Sokka sees it. He tries to stop her from freeing whatever monster was trapped in there, but Katara doesn't notice the strange flatworm-kite-thing until it's too late and it's forcing it's tendrils through the cracks in the ice.

-Seeing an opportunity, Raava uses the cracks in the ice Katara created to break the icy sphere open completely, and a burst of light is sent into the sky, signalling the Avatar's return.

-Katara remembers Gran Gran's tales of spirits who set traps for wanderers out in the icy wastes and worries that she may have accidentally doomed herself and her brother. However, the spirit that pops out of the ice seems more concerned with a young boy it has cradled in it's tendrils. It lays him down gently in the snow, telling him to rest easy.

-When the spirit turns towards his sister, Sokka steps into action, he points his spear at the thing, telling his sister to stay back. That they don't know what this creature is capable of. The spirit casually knocks Sokka's weapon aside and rests a tendril on his shoulder, telling him to take it easy. Sokka can't help but feel oddly drowsy from the contact, like a soft blanket had been draped over his mind.

-Katara asks the spirit who it is. The spirit introduces herself as Raava, the spirit of light and peace. Raava asks Katara if she's a waterbender, Katara confirms that yes she is. So Raava asks if she'd be willing to teach the Avatar, gesturing to Aang.

-Katara explains that she's untrained and that she's the last waterbender in the south pole.

-A fact that worries Raava.

-Raava vouches to see that both Aang and Katara are trained. She asks Katara to take them back to her village and Katara obliges, much to a still sleepy Sokka's chagrin.

-Raava loads Aang onto the bison and Katara and Sokka get on as Appa wakes up. Raava glides along side the bison as Katara leads them to the village. As they get closer, Raava takes on a human looking form and carries Aang in her arms. It's been her personal experience that humans tend to react better to other humans than to faceless spirits.

-None of the villagers ask who this strange woman is, they simply assume that she's the mother of the child she has in her arms.

-Raava watches over Aang as he sleeps. When he wakes up, he feels a vague familiarity at Raava, but doesn't know who she is. She tells him flat out that she's the one known as the Avatar Spirit.

-When Katara introduces Aang and Raava to the village. Raava can't help but feel concerned about how sparse it is. Also, she doesn't introduce herself as a spirit, she simply introduces herself as Raava. The villagers are not only surprised to see an airbender, but also someone as regal looking as Raava.

-Of course, immediately on Raava's docket is going straight to the North Pole so Katara and Aang can learn waterbending. But Aang wants to go penguin sledding with Katara. Being a spirit, Raava is intimately familiar with the fact that they are actually on a deadline and doom is imminent. But even Raava must relent to Aang's incurable puppy face.

-Raava stays behind in the village, learning more specific details about the 100 years war and the stripping of the South Pole.

-Then the whole thing with Aang booby-ing right into a trap happens.

-Sokka banishes Aang from the village, Katara demands to go with him and Raava feels like it's about damn time for them to get on the road.

-Unlike Aang, Raava has no qualms about splitting up Katara's family.

-Then Zuko attacks Katara's tribe and the trio rush back to help.

-Raava steps up to stop Zuko, and Zuko assumes that she's the Avatar. She corrects him, telling him that she's close to the Avatar, but not him.

-She can see the strings of fate that attach Zuko to Aang, so she lets him off easy, grabbing him and using her pacifying aura to make him take a nap. Only saying that he looked like he needed one.

-Iroh is naturally worried for his nephew, but Raava assures him that Zuko is only sleeping and will be back to normal as soon as he wakes up.

-Skipping ahead a bit~

-For the most part, Raava keeps her true nature hidden. Pretending to be a human woman. As no one alive knows who Raava is, it works like a charm.

-Aang is still captured by Zhao when Sokka and Katara get sick, and Zuko does do his Blue Spirit thing trying to rescue him. But also Raava is goddamn pissed and levels half the damn fortress while the duo escape.

-Quick note about Raava, she calls herself a spirit of peace, but she's technically the spirit of order and goes from 0 to 10,000 pretty much instantly. So yeah, she's less an embodiment of peace, and more an enforcer of it.

-They get to the North Pole much faster than in canon, because Raava doesn't play and is actually able to keep the children on task.

-When Pakku refuses to teach Katara, Raava is fucking PISSED. She cannot believe how selfish he's being. Seriously? He's putting his tribe's stupid culture and traditions above the safety and balance of the world! Katara just stands by, smirking as Raava reveals her true nature and goes off on Pakku. She thoroughly enjoys watching him get dunked on by an ancient spirit.

-Not only does Raava demand that both Katara and Aang are taught combat waterbending, but also healing. She honestly doesn't understand why anyone would be dumb enough to separate the two. 1) The more healers, the better. 2) Having an intimate knowledge of the human body(as would be required by healing) makes you a better fighter.

-Both Zhao and Zuko track the Avatar to the North Pole, but Zhao is forced to hang back until he can gather his fleet to attack the fortress. Zuko just breaks right in and is captured. Raava knows that the North will not have mercy on the Fire Prince and demands that he be released to her custody.

-The northerners correctly deduce that she plans on using the Fire Prince as a teacher for the Avatar.

-Unable to deny the direct order of a greater spirit, Zuko is released into Raava's care. She makes sure to keep him in line and implants suggestions into him that make him question his father and country.

-Obviously he isn't anywhere near ready to turn yet, but the seeds are planted much earlier.

-As for waterbending teaching, the healers welcome Aang with open arms. However, Katara gets it ROUGH from the combat students. Pakku is intentionally harsher than normal on her. He's also super hard on Aang, but Katara gets it double time because she's a girl and because Raava is making him teach her.

-When Zhao eventually comes to the North, not only does Raava decimate his fleet, but she also works with Tui and La to trap him in the spirit world for having the audacity to mess with the spirits.

On a side note, I actually spent some time thinking about this. Now for the story, I kind of picture in my mind that Raava goes full on IMMA FIRIN MAH LAZOR on Zhao's fleet. Now, Raava also attacked the Pohai stronghold, and even though Zhao is a reckless idiot, he's not so reckless that he'd just casually forget something as important as the fact that the spirit hanging around the Avatar has A POWERFUL FUCKING LASER. So I got to thinking, if Zhao knows that Raava has a spirit beam attack, he'd make some kind of counter measure. Now, before Kuvira builds the Avatar world's equivalent of a nuke, there really isn't anything that can counter such an attack. And even then, the spirit canon was never used on either Raava or Vaatu, so even though I'm sure it would hurt them, I have no clue how much.

So, this leaves a dilemma. Because Zhao would not abandon his quest to kill the Moon Spirit. Now, I suppose Zhao could just wait for the Avatar to leave the North Pole, but Zhao is not a patient man. So, do I have Raava just not use her spirit laser at the Pohai fortress? Have it be a surprise muthafucka moment for Zhao? I mean, a giant spirit thrashing about would create just as much damage. Or, ooor- And here's a juicy idea~ Zhao intentionally suppresses information of the full extent of Raava's power(it would be harder to get people to join him if they knew just what they were up against) and simply amasses a larger fleet than in canon. He has no real recourse or counter for Raava's power, but decides that he'll simply use his fleet as a distraction. Keep Raava busy while he fulfills his real goal, slaying the Moon Spirit. Zhao's plan isn't to counter Raava directly, but to simply use his fleet a bait.

After all, what better bait than fresh meat?

-Of course, this does bring up that idea... Perhaps Zhao succeeds?

-Oh and in case you were wondering, Ozai was 100% on board with Zhao's idea.

-Skipping ahead some more~

-In Omashu, when facing against the dangerous ladies, Raava proves to be a formidable adversary. Mai's knives harmlessly phase through or bounce off her body. Ty Lee's chi blocking doesn't affect her, and physical contact with the spirit causes Ty Lee to feel the effects of Raava's pacifying aura. Raava's aura, as Ty Lee notes is a brilliant radiance, like looking at the sun.

-And in Azula's case, Raava isn't at all intimidated or swain by her. The spirit is hardly fazed by her blue fire, taking fireballs to the face without so much as a flinch. For the first time in Azula's life she find herself an unstoppable force, meeting an immovable object.

-It's equally frustrating as it is exhilarating.

-Azula's found a worthy opponent.

-For Raava's part, the group are hardly noteworthy. Easily taken down by her pacifying aura. However, Raava knows better than to underestimate an opponent. Fighting someone for eons(like Vaatu) instills these lessons quite firmly. So, she notes whatever things she can about the group, instinctively knowing that this isn't the last she'll see of them.

-Aaand, the swamp. The swamp wants the Gaang to come down and join it. Raava wants the Gaang to join the swamp. The Gaang do not want to join the swamp.

-When the Gaang try to fly over, Raava warns them that they've angered it. She does nothing as the swamp forcefully sucks the group down.

-I'm still deciding whether or not Zhao succeeds in killing Tui... But if he doesn't, instead of encountering a vision of Yue in the swamp, the moon spirit confronts Sokka. With all it's creepy faceless glory.

-As for Aang, he chases down the vision of Toph and runs into Vaatu, or at least a vision of him(or maybe it really is him, I'm leaving this intentionally vague). The spirit shrinks down and forms into a black humanoid shape and reaches out to Aang, who flees in terror.

-Yeah, I'm thinking that overall the Gaang's spirit visions/encounters are much longer, more harrowing, and much much more involved. More like dream sequences/quests than simple visions.

-The swamp is alive, it is a spirit. And spirits are dicks.

-When the group reconvenes, Sokka accuses Raava of terrorizing him. If I have Zhao succeed in killing the Moon Spirit, this scene becomes much more personal with Sokka accusing Raava of using Yue to terrorize him. He's livid with the light spirit, claiming that she used the image of Yue to torment him.

-Of course, Raava did no such thing. But she let's Sokka have his moment, utterly unmoved by his anger. She calmly states that she did no such thing and asks Sokka what possible motivation she could have for doing that.

-Sokka's pissed at Raava for a bit after that, but ultimately accepts that she had nothing to do with what he saw.

-As for Raava herself, she has a vision of Wan.

-Skipping ahead a bit~

-For Toph, Raava is a nightmare. Raava is a spririt, so not only does she not create any vibrations whatsoever, but she also lacks a smell and her voice emanates with no clear direction. Toph never knows when Raava is around, where Raava is, or when Raava is approaching. The only time she knows Raava's there is when she starts speaking.

-She's also completely unable to tell when or if Raava is ever lying.

-Without meaning to, Raava makes Toph feel helpless.

-But that's not all, Toph also hates how demanding Raava is. And poor Toph has no recourse against her. She can't see Raava, so she can't throw any earth her way, and Raava doesn't respond to argument or teasing. At least when Toph is annoyed with Katara, she can call her Sugar Queen and throw mud on her. But deepest of all, Toph is worried that Raava will treat her like her parents treat her. As someone who's too weak and delicate to care for or defend themselves.

-From Raava's perspective, she doesn't like how chaotic Toph is, but overall feels the same way that she does for the rest of the Gaang. She comes to love her dearly. As much as she dotes on the Gaang, she doesn't at all think of any of them as being weak. Far from it! In her eyes they're all powerful warriors. They're her powerful warriors. Yes they are, yes they are~!

-Raava pretty much dotes on the Gaang and comes think of them as her children. She basically takes over Katara's role as group mom, which allows Katara to settle more into a role of being a kid.

-Even though Raava spoils the Gaang, she's also the fun police. The Gaang are all chaotic gremlins and Raava just wants them to stop and SETTLE DOWN FOR ONCE DAMMIT.

-Just an all powerful spirit vs the chaotic energy of a bunch of kids.

-At Wan Shi Tong's library, Raava joins the Gaang going inside. It's because of her that Wan Shi Tong allows them to peruse his collection.

-While he doesn't trust or like humans, he isn't dumb enough to defy a greater spirit. Especially not Raava.

-Let's just say, Raava has a bit of a reputation.

-The Gaang are able to spend a very long time in the library, building an extensive plan and knowledge base before they leave.

-Raava insists that Toph come into the library with them, offering to read to Toph whatever topic her heart desires. The idea makes Toph a little excited, but she makes it seem like she's only begrudgingly agreeing.

-You know Toph would take full advantage of Raava's offer and learn about everything her parents tried to hide from her.

-It does provide as an opportunity for Raava and Toph to bond. Toph finds that Raava's voice is nice to listen to, very soothing. She also finds that Raava isn't as judgmental as her parents. She judges Toph for her actions and her strength, not some preconceived notion that blindness=weakness.

-I'll probably have other times like this peppered throughout the story where various members of the Gaang get a one-on-one with Raava where she offers her I've-Been-Around-Since-The-Beginning-Of-Time-So-I-Must-Know-Something wisdom.

-Naturally, this means that the sandbenders are able to steal Appa unopposed.

-Since Appa has been stolen, Raava carries them all to Ba Sing Se. She tries to console Aang in his grief, but Aang shuts himself off from the rest of the group, and even blames Raava for Appa's disappearance.

-When they first find out, he blows up at her, screaming that she should have kept watch to make sure nothing happened to him.

-To which Raava rightly points out that not only is Appa a ten ton bison fully capable of handling himself, but also they don't know what happened to him, and leaving someone behind could have meant loosing two team members instead of one.

-Aang is upset enough to trigger the avatar state, but Raava uses her ties to him to pacify him instead.

-By the time Raava reaches the walls of Ba Sing Se, the city's generals have collected along with several soldiers. Being a giant, luminescent flatworm, Raava isn't too hard to spot. Even at a distance.

-Of course, the Gaang are all knocked out from prolonged contact with Raava so they're useless at the moment.

-The generals soon recognize Raava as being the one that brought down Zhao's fleet, and slightly concerned she'll do the same to the city, comply with her demands that the Gaang be given adequate shelter.

-The Gaang all wake up in a very nice house in the upper ring, Raava is quietly reading a play.

-For a while Aang resents Raava, feeling like it's her fault that Appa disappeared. Raava, understanding that he needs to time to process his grief, leaves him be.

-Raava actually likes Ba Sing Se. As a being of order, she sees the peaceful, orderly city as the way the world should be.

-She feels Long Feng's methods to be effective.

-This does drive a bit of a wedge between her and the Gaang, as none of them can properly comprehend spirit morality. Aang kind of understands, but he's kinda pissed at Raava.

-Raava decides to be patient with them, by this point she's realized that sometimes humans need time to understand things.

-Raava and Long Feng come to have an understanding.

-Even still, when Appa goes roaming out into the dark night, it's Raava and not Long Feng that he finds at the end of his journey.

-Aang is very happy to be reunited with Appa and apologizes for being cold/harsh with Raava. Raava just hugs him.

-Thanks to Raava and Long Feng's understanding, they manage to get a meeting with the Earth Kingdom generals to talk about the invasion of the Fire Nation.

-Since they get to Ba Sing Se earlier than in canon(again Raava is pretty good at keeping the children on task and getting/keeping them out of sticky situations) the drill appears much later during their time in Ba Sing Se.

-The Fire Nation didn't know that Raava was in Ba Sing Se, but figured that their reinforced drill would be tough enough to withstand- it's not.

-Raava just wants to blow the stupid thing up and be done with it, but Aang doesn't want Raava to do that because then a whole bunch of people will die. Raava doesn't care, a few human casualties is nothing compared to the havoc on the world's balance that the Fire Nation taking Ba Sing Se would bring.

-But Raava relents and decides to pull the drill apart, a slower and much harder process, but one that would be much less likely to harm anyone inside.

-They notice right away that Raava is attacking the drill, so Azula and her two friends go out to fight Raava and the Gaang.

-Mai and Ty Lee have learned their lessons about physical contact with Raava from the last time they fought.

-Azula uses her lightning on Raava, which while not deadly like it would be on a human, does actually hurt Raava.

-After being hit by multiple bolts of lightning, Raava lets go of mercy and trashes Azula.

-Thoroughly crushed, Azula and her friends have to go home with their tails between their legs.

-In this AU they never visit Kyoshi, and Appa's with Aang, so there's no one for Azula to disguise herself as.

-Azula also starts to crack a little bit earlier due to her complete inability to even pose a threat to Raava. As this forces her to reconsider deep aspects about herself and her own failings. After all, almost isn't good enough.

-Azula does try to tell herself that he usual tactics aren't working on Raava, because she's a spirit and spirits are fools. But deep down, she's always considered herself above the spirits. So it's not easy for her when this is called into question.

-The dangerous ladies do eventually manage to sneak into Ba Sing Se. Azula's plans remain more or less the same as canon.

-Though, I have started thinking that maybe Azula adds another to her posse, perhaps someone with spiritual expertise? No one can counter Raava in terms of power, but perhaps she can be countered in terms of spirituality?

-Either way, Azula fails to sway the Dai Li to her favor. In their eyes, Raava's favor of Long Feng means he's the one that was chosen by the fates to lead.

-So the dangerous ladies are arrested.

-I'm still deciding whether they break out or get brainwashed. I’m leaning towards epic jailbreak. But IDK.

-Iroh invites Raava to his tea shop, flirts and makes pleasant conversation with her. Much to Zuko's dismay, Iroh invites her back to their apartment to discuss a firebending teacher for the Avatar, as well as the Day of Black Sun.

-Oh yeah, Raava knows that Zuko and Iroh are Fire royals. She also knows that they're the only good options to fill Ozai's place when he's removed from power.

-All that said, the eclipse goes soooo much better than in canon. The Fire Nation legit don't know what's coming so no trap can be lain.

-Ozai is stripped of his power by Raava and thrown in jail.

-Zuko is crowned and rules with Raava constantly leering over his shoulder.

-Some notes about Raava's characterization in this AU; a pretty strong case for good is not nice. Raava can be very blunt and abrasive, also she nags and chides literally everyone. She absolutely loves and adores her Avatar, as well as the companions he travels with, but is overall critical of humankind. While the amount of people she likes is vanishingly small, she also doesn't really hate anyone(not even Vaatu). She's more like the tired kindergarten teacher who stares into the void as her students tear the classroom apart around her. Of course she’s also about a planc length from taping all the children to the floor.

-And if you think that's the end and everything just wraps up nicely and it's all happy good times from there...

-I admire your optimism.

#ATLA #Avatar #ATLA AU #Avatar AU #Mama Raava #EternalMomofLight #We've reached the top of the hill. And the only way is down.#Ending wars is never a clean business #And Raava's reaching her limit #There's still Ozai's supporters #And Azula #And Sozin's comet #Lots of fun times ahead! :)

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howtohero · 5 years

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#233 Being a Guest in Someone Else’s Hideout

A lot of times superheroes need to be very secretive. They do dangerous work that (if they’re doing literally anything right) is going to net them some very unscrupulous and ruthless enemies. Superheroes need to keep secrets from their enemies, the public, their loved ones, just about everybody. Generally they’ll keep a good number of secrets from their fellow superheroes. Like we’ve said, a superhero is just one expired coupon away from becoming a supervillain. So when a superhero invites you, another superhero, to their hideout, their fortress of attitude, their superman cave, well that’s a big deal. So let’s behave ourselves why don’t we?

It is important to be polite when invited to another hero’s hideout, in order to ensure future invitations back. Superheroes constantly find themselves stepping in all manner of ooze, muck, and living clay, so always make sure to wipe your feet before entering. Do not confuse the absence of any sort of welcome mat as license to forget this rule. Obviously a superhero is not going to put a welcome mat in front of the entrance to their secret hideout. That’s a great way to alert supervillains that this cliffside or large tree stump or inert robot dinosaur is not all that it seems. Plus, you’d definitely get vampires wandering in all the time. So, you should always carry a shoe-brush in your utility belt, in order to avoid tracking up your friend’s home with toxic waste or melted witches. (For a limited time only if you send us $66.99 we’ll send you a Free shoe brush!) Be sure to compliment your host on their lovely home. Remark upon their collection of supervillain masks and how the well they really nailed that authentic guano smell. Tell them that you just love the greco-roman architecture on display in their “Supervillain’s Oversized Prop (Explosive)” room and the very chic gothic spires you’ve got your (what you hope are) dummy replicas of their enemies heads mounted on.

If you’ve been invited to a fellow hero’s secret private space it’s probably for some purpose, so make sure you don’t do anything that would detract from that. If you’re there because your own hideout has been compromised and your comrade has graciously allowed you to hide out in their hideout, make sure you don’t make any of the same mistakes you made with your own hideout. Turn off any tracking or location-reading apps on your phone and then- wait you know what, chuck your phone into a river, it’s not been doing you any favors and also I hear that you’ve been spamming the superhero group chat which I believe is really a thing with memes about yourself. (Not a cool look bud.) Additionally, I wouldn’t touch anything that you haven’t been given explicit permission to touch. It’s possible that certain items or spots in this hideout have been booby trapped in the event that it is invaded. Touching a computer might send out a distress signal that can be hijacked. Attempting to use the coffee machine could activate a cache of hidden weapons. Pulling a book out of a shelf could reveal a secret set of stairs that leads up the hero’s home. Depending on how paranoid the hero is, anything could be anything. So no touchy.

You also want to be especially careful not to break anything as who knows what kind of disastrous consequences that could have. You might inadvertently destroy a vase that had been acting as a prison for evil spirits. Or you might knock over a bottle that contains an entire solar system inside of it. You might just break something the hero was especially fond of and who knows! That could easily turn them into a supervillain! Honestly, if you have a history of being clumsy and knocking things over, I would just decline the invitation entirely. If this hero so desperately wants to talk to you somewhere private just invite them over to your presumably padded hideout. You just can’t run the risk of knocking over some poison gas canister or a bomb or a picture of the hero’s late parents.

You also need to treat any employees or sidekicks working or residing in the hideout with the utmost respect. Remember, you are a guest. That does not give you the right to be rude. If anything you can’t even manage to get people to come over your hideout for meetings or recipe-swaps, so you have less of a right to be rude than usual. So be on your best behavior. Find out what it is everybody there does and make sure you say something nice about their work. Tell the electrician how much you love the lighting (even if the lighting consists of six strobe lights that are not even in sync with one another and are giving you a massive headache). Tell the tailor how much you love all of the costumes your friend wears (even the late nineties one with all of the pouches). Heap compliment upon compliment upon compliment onto the plumber for the state of the art bathrooms in the hideout. (Even if the “bathroom” just consists of a hole this guy dug into the ground. Digging a poop hole is hard work. Especially if this hideout is in the penthouse of a downtown office building!)

Being invited to hang out in another hero’s hideout is a big deal! It shows that the other hero has a great deal of trust and respect for you (or they have a strong desire to flex on you by showing off their absolutely baller hideout. Rule of thumb, if they have any sort of lazy river or soft-drink dispenser then it’s probably this one.) and you in turn need to treat their space with respect. So don’t lead any supervillains to their front door, don’t make a mess, and don’t accidentally discover their secret identity. If you can manage to follow all of these rules then you’ll be invited back again soon in no time. (Maybe you’ll finally get an invite to one of those legendary superhero slumber parties! Make sure you make numerous references to all the spots in the hideout that you think your sleeping bag would perfectly fit in.)

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lenfaz · 6 years

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Sea Squad, ch. 2 (2/14)

Summary: Killian Jones has always managed tough spots in his con life… but never like this one. His brother is out of jail and convinced the only way to win his name back is to heist the casino of a major Vegas mogul, leaving Killian to do the planning. He now has to deal with a half-brother desperate to gain a name of his own, an ex-fling that carries her own torch against the casino mogul, his brother losing his mind over his ex-wife, his former mentor’s depression and the one woman he can’t get out of his mind giving him chase. Ocean’s Eleven AU

Rating: M

Content warnings: semi-explicit sexual content, law-breaking (they are thieves, liars and con men), mild violence (someone will get punched), mention of former relationships (for the main pair) and cheating (but not for the main pair)

Chapter warning: Milah is a character in this fic.

Banner (link to banner post) and art by the amazing @clockadile Go check her art tag for the fic here!

This fic would never exist without the wonderful @sambethe who convinced me to do over hot chocolate on one cold Chicago afternoon and virtually held my hand and betaed this fic for months. thank you SO much for everything you do.

A/N: A long time ago there was talk about Hook & his sea friends and a few collective posts shaped the idea of a Sea Squad. This fic is the attempt to bring that creativity to life. Tagging @queen-mabs-revenge @thesschesthair and @jvosketches as they were part of that initial thinking back in the day. If a few things sound familiar, it’s because they are based on the movie.

Link to FFnet & AO3

on tumblr: 1

Chapter 2

It was warm and sunny in Las Vegas. Or at least, that was how the radio host described it as the sound blasted in the taxi as they cruised through the outskirts of town, on their way to Nemo’s mansion. Killian would have put it differently: blazing hot with the chance of bursting into flames when one came into direct contact with sunlight.

More than two decades out of the Motherland and he still wasn’t used to this much sunlight. To cope, he followed Liam’s lead and uncuffed his pristine white shirt and rolled his sleeves up over his forearms.

Arriving at Nemo’s, they were quickly shown into an interior patio. The place was impeccable, as always - not a piece of furniture or decoration out of place, fresh cut flowers in each room they passed, no speck of dirt or mote of dust to be seen. And yet, all of it seemed off, the house too quiet by half, and a sense of sorrow seemed to pervade the air. When Nemo finally joined them, Killian’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of their old friend - their mentor. While dressed in a well-tailored navy suit, still sporting his jacket despite the midday heat, Nemo looked like a shell of the man he’d once been. His voice might still be booming and his presence almost overwhelming, but he seemed smaller, his eyes dimmer. It was as if his image had been blurred at the edges, his presence quietly fading away. It was painful to see, and Killian darted his eyes to Liam, finding his feelings mirrored in the way Liam’s jaw clenched before he composed his features into a warm smile.

However, it only took them hinting at their idea over a magnificent lunch for Nemo to rise into his full former glory.

"You can't take on a casino in Vegas, you dimwits."

“Of course we can.” Liam took a sip of his wine. “It would be a nice challenge.”

“It cannot be done.” Nemo pointed his fork at each of them, his eyes flaring with that familiar hint of annoyance they seem to bring out in him. “I should know, lads. I all but invented security in casinos.”

“It hasn’t been tried.” Killian shrugged, leaning back in his chair and waiting for the fireworks. They shouldn’t be goading Nemo like this, they both owed this man more than they could ever repay him for. He’d rescued them from the streets, put clothes on their backs and food in their stomachs. This man had sent them to get educations while teaching them a few extra things on the side. For all intents and purposes, Nemo had been the only father they’d ever known.

Which is why it was up to them to shake him from the funk he’d been in since the Nautilus was torn down.

The vein in Nemo’s neck twitched and he had started to rub his fingers along his temple. The man who prided himself on his utter calm and poise was losing it in front of them. It was just as he used to do when Killian and Liam were teenagers and he had once again been called to the principal’s office.

It was glorious.

“It hasn’t been tried?” He put his fork down, crossed his arms over his chest, and recounted for both of them, in painstaking detail, the accounts of each of the most successful robbery attempts in Vegas’ history. None of which had been successful in the slightest, and one or two of them had Nemo playing his part to prevent them. No one tried to rob Nemo and lived to tell the tale.

Or maybe they lived, but certainly not unscathed.

Once he was done with his tirade, Nemo sat in silence for a moment, his eyes boring into both Liam and Killian until they both started fidgeting.

Finally he leaned in, his fork once again in hand and waving it between them. “You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do? You think I’m not aware of the fact that you’re trying to rile me up? Do you think I am just going to cave and indulge whatever little scheme it is you’ve concocted that you think is the most brilliant heist and the solution to all of the problems you’ve been happily sweeping under the rug for years? How gullible do you think I am?”

He pointed at Liam. “You just got out,” then at Killian. “You’ve been moping around since Tuscany, trying to find your mojo again and failing miserably.” He sighed and Killian felt the weight of the world in that sigh. “Maybe it’s time to call it quits, lads. You had a good run, I’ve had a good run. We’ve met each other, we became family. You’re welcome to stay here and let us live the rest of our lives feasting and enjoying the sunny weather.”

Liam’s face was a blank mask as he stared back at Nemo. “I can’t do that, Nemo, and you know it. I can’t be a coward who crawls back into a hole. I won’t.”

Nemo’s eyebrows twitched, the only outward sign that the punch thrown by Liam had landed. “Which casino did you pick?” he asked after a few minutes.

Liam shrugged, taking a beat to build momentum as he exchanged a look with Killian. “The Gold, the Baelfire, and the Dagger.”

The man in front of them froze, his eyes widening. “Gold’s casinos…”

“Are they?” Killian waved his hand in that nonchalant motion Nemo had mastered years before him. “I hadn’t realized.”

"Gold. You want to take on Gold?" Nemo reached for his wine and took a large gulp. He studied both them in turn, as he’d done so many times before, something hard edging into his eyes. “Revenge is a dangerous path, Liam.”

It was, and both Killian and Liam knew it.

Liam leaned in, his frank stare warning Nemo that he wasn’t going to back down. Not this time. “But it’s one that pays handsomely, if you know what you’re doing. And we know what we’re doing. You’ve taught us well, Nemo.”

There was affection infused into that last sentence, and Nemo’s face softened at the sound of it, understanding their plea. It was the plea of the child who still needed his father to guide them, help them not to completely fuck it all up. It wasn’t just Nemo’s resources they’d need, they needed the man himself, needed his guidance and mentorship. A role he had played for them so many times before.

They knew it. Nemo knew it. He sighed, running a hand over his bald head before giving in. “If you want to do this, you - we - will need more people.”

Liam smirked, his hand clasping Killian’s shoulder. “I’ve already talked to Ursula - she’s in. Killian’s on the rest.”

Both men turned to him, and Killian knew this was his moment. This was what he always did best - pick the crew that will fall under Liam’s command and execute. It was his talent and, gods, had he missed doing it.

“We need several things: electronics, drivers, and a whole lot of old friends coming back to work. But we probably should start with what we have at hand. Munitions.”

“Blackbeard?” Nemo asked but Killian shook his hand with a sad smile on his face.

“Lung cancer. He’s not fit for travel. Sends his regards and wishes us luck.” He let the news sink as he cleared his throat. “Milah is in town.”

Liam cocked an eyebrow in surprise but Nemo didn’t even flinch. It was clear the older man knew a lot more of what was happening in the city than he originally let on.

“Are you guys...?” Liam, always the one hinting at things instead of asking the point blank question.

Killian shook his head. “No, not anymore… but it ended amicably and if there is someone who would simply love to pull a heist on Gold, it’s his ex-wife.”

/-/

Killian watched from the shadows as two officers cuffed Milah and pushed her towards one of the waiting patrol cars.

It was a bloody shame. Milah was way too talented for the tossers she’d associated with for this job. He didn’t have to tail her to know that most likely her part of the work had been spot on, and from the sound blaring the building, her idiot partners had done a terrible job disconnecting the alarm, resulting in an entire bust.

Oh well, their loss was clearly his gain.

Taking a drag off his cigarette, he made his way to where one of the officers was interrogating her next to the car. “Officer, I’m Smith, from ATF.” He quickly showed a fake badge he and Liam has manufactured years ago. “Have you checked her for weapons?”

The officer nodded and from the corner of his eye, Killian saw Milah’s furtive smile. Game on.

“What about booby traps on her body?” He didn’t give the officer time to answer, instead he tossed the cigarette and started barking orders. “You incompetent idiot, go find Riggs and tell him I need him.” He took a step forward, moving the officer out of the way and pushing Milah against the car.

“Should I get a female officer?”

“Get me Riggs. NOW!” His booming order did the trick and the officer took off. He slid his hands down Milah’s sides, pretending to check for weapons.

“This brings back memories.” She delivered the words in a low purr, fun and flirty much like Milah herself had always been.

Killian smiled as he quickly uncuffed her and put something in her hands. "It's not that kind of visit."

"Oh. Still pining for the blonde, are you?" There wasn’t any anger in her voice, or even regret. She knew where they stood and she’d always been ok with it.

"Always," he sighed, pushing the memories of that blonde beauty back into his mind and focusing on the job. “Can you work with what I gave you?”

She turned around and gave him a wide smile. “It’s done. But we need to get out of here… now.”

He mimed pushing her forward by the cuffs that were no longer binding her, and they made haste towards the corner.

“So, if this is not a social visit, then please tell me you have something better for me than this.” She gestured back towards the building. “I beg of thee, save me again from my misery.”

Killian chuckled and nodded. “Indeed we do.”

“We? Is Liam around?” She all but beamed. “This is even getting better. It’d be nice to work with proper and competent professionals again.”

He bowed his head at the compliment. “Thank you, milady.”

The sound of a minor explosion threw everyone around them into chaos and gave them the opportunity to quickly disappear.

“What do you have in mind?” Milah asked as they made their way towards the diner where Liam was waiting for them.

“Something you’re going to adore, love.” Killian ran his hand through his hair, sighing deeply. Now that the rescue was over and the adrenaline had rushed off, Milah’s comment had triggered his memories of Tuscany back in full force. Blonde hair that shone under the sunlight, freckled skin he’d kissed over and over again, lust words whispered in the middle of the night. Was it possible that he’d never be over what happened in Tuscany? Will he ever be over her?

“Killian…” Milah had her hand on his arm, her eyes searching his with friendly concern. “Are you ok?”

“Aye, all good. Just ghosts from the time past, that is all.”

She gave him a reassuring smile and a squeeze of her hand on his arm. “Let’s go meet Liam and you boys can tell me all about the mischief you have planned.”

/-/

With Milah in the minute they uttered the word Gold, Liam and Killian started to put together the list of other associates they would need to pull this job off. For transportation, Ariel and Eric would do. While the two of them might bicker constantly, and more than once had taken their costumes and disguises into the bedroom, they were an invincible combination who could pull off any escape when teamed together. And given that it had been a few months since their last job, Killian knew they would be getting restless and in the mood for a new distraction. With a few texts shot back and forth, they organized a meeting for later in the week.

“But for now, brother,” Killian said as he got into one of Nemo’s cars and drove them to the airport, “we have a show to catch in Maine.”

“Maine? What the bloody fuck is in Maine?”

“Our greaseman.”

Storybrooke, Maine. A quaint little town with a lovely seacoast and enchanting shops that garnished Main Street. The diner served a divine hot chocolate that was the perfect recipe against the chilly weather.

In the outskirts of the town, a big tent structure with big bold letters announced what they’d traveled for. Charming Circus.

It was a small acrobatics company, devoted to their craft and filled with warm, kind people. In that context, it was clear that one of their attractions didn’t quite belong. His hair wasn’t the same shade of brown as the rest of them and he seemed to carry that look in his eyes. One that both Liam and Killian knew very well.

“Henry Mills, claims to be 18 but that is not what my sources tell me.” Killian fidgeted with his program as they watched the show.

“Older?” Liam asked, his eyes following every move of the lad on the stage.

“Younger. He’s an orphan, got adopted and then pulled back into the system because of a nasty situation. He never got adopted again and bounced from foster home to group home back and again.”

“Lovely childhood, I imagine.” Liam didn’t need to imagine it, and neither did Killian. They had gone through enough of that in a short phase in their lives and vowed to never go back to it. If it hadn’t been for Nemo, who knew how they would have ended up.

“Started picking pockets at ten here and there, nothing major. Then he discovered he had a knack for acrobatics and used it to his benefit. Got emancipated at fourteen and has been working with this company for a few months.” Killian lingered as he watched Henry execute a series of jumps and hoops with precision. The boy was good and it would be more than enough for what they’d need.

“I sense there is a but coming to this story.”

“The company doesn’t make that much money. He isn’t able to support himself or try anything out on his own on his portion of the cut. He’s bound to them, even if he doesn’t want to be owned by anyone at this point. He’s willing to do anything not to go back to the system, or not to end up stuck here.”

“He could do worse, they do seem like nice people.”

“Liam.”

His brother sighed. “And you can vouch for him? That he won’t sell us to the cops?”

“Aye, I’ve known a few people who’ve worked with him on the side. He’s good, quiet, and really can pull this off.”

“Fine. If you say we can trust him, I do.” Liam stood up and stretched his muscles. “Can we please get out of here now? I cannot understand how people even live here.”

“I don’t know… it has its charms.”

Liam stared at him. “You like it here? Why? We haven’t even seen one attractive woman since we got here.”

“That is not what I meant and you know it.” Killian reached their rental car and opened the door, deciding to finally address the fact both he and Liam had been studiously ignoring.

”We need Poseidon.”

Liam sighed as he got into the car. “I know we do, but from what Ursula told me, it’s going to be hard to convince him to join us. He seemed to have lost the will to live.”

“Maybe he just needs a little push. It worked with Nemo.”

“Nemo was never going to let us walk into this on our own and you know it, Killian.”

“I know, but think about it… after Nemo, Poseidon is the closest person we’ve had to a mentor or a father of sorts. He still taught us even after he caught you and Ursula snogging on that alley.”

“We were kids!”

“I’m not judging, Liam. I’m just saying that if there is one way to get him back on track, might as well be one where his daughter and the two closest things he has to sons are involved.”

Liam stared at Killian for a long moment. Long enough for him to feel the hairs on his skin rise with apprehension. “What?”

Liam shook his head. “You always have to be the charmer, don’t you?”

Killian smirked. “I have my moments.” He started the car and put it in gear. “I tell you what, you go talk to Ariel and Eric. I’ll get to Poseidon.”

/-/

Fucking Tampa, Florida of all places.

Only here did the sun shine more brightly and the heat blast higher than in Nevada. Killian played with the open collar of his shirt, and considered undoing two more buttons. He’d already discarded his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt before entering the horse races and he was still on the verge of sweating like a pig. He needed to get out of the sun, pronto. He adjusted his sunglasses as he followed Poseidon’s movements through the paddock.

When the other man finished his bet and finally took a seat, Killian made his move. But he was at least fifteen paces away from him when Poseidon started speaking without turning his head.

“You’re losing your touch, Killian.” He turned around. He looked tired, the bags around his eyes dark and his skin ashen, but there was still that tiny spark in his eyes that Killian had been counting on. “I spotted you following me about ten minutes back, huffing at the heat and probably cursing your luck for agreeing to be the one to come and try to convince me.”

“And you haven’t lost yours.” Killian tilted his head towards the upper level boxes, where the promise of blessed shade and proper bloody drinks lay. Anything had to be better than the terrible coffee that was served down here. “Come on, I got us a box seat. Nemo’s treat.”

“You got Nemo into this? Color me shocked.” Poseidon stood up and followed Killian, his steps still carrying that majestic quality and calm tempo of someone used to commanding the attention of a room. If Killian made it to his sixties with half the presence Nemo and Poseidon had, he’d consider himself a lucky bastard.

He pointed Poseidon in the direction of their seats and waited for him to sit before taking the spot next to him, motioning to the nearby waiter to get them a drink. “Your daughter is in too.”

Poseidon smirked, his eyes following the horses as the race started. “She always did have a soft spot for your brother. Even if they both have moved on, she still will jump on a job if Liam asks.”

“Milah is part of the crew as well.”

That made Poseidon give him a sardonic smile. “What is this? ‘Bring your ex to the heist day’?”

Killian shrugged. “More like a reunion of good friends who happen to be highly skilled professionals. We only like to deal with the best.”

Poseidon sighed. His eyes still followed the race, but the clear twitch in his jaw gave away his frustration. “I’ve changed, Killian.”

“People like us don’t change, Poseidon. We get beaten up a little, lose a few opportunities here and there, miscalculate a few risks, and come back from all of that with our skills refined. You can try to lie to your daughter, to Nemo, to yourself as much as you want. You can claim all you want in life is a condo in Boca and betting on horses that are never going to win.” He took a sip of his drink and pointed his finger at the race that had just ended. “You can pretend that the thrill of a few minutes of race is all the edge you’re going to need from now on, but you and I know that it won’t be enough. A month, six months, a year from now that thrill won’t be enough and you’ll end up losing the condo on a misplaced bet all because you’re bored out of your mind.”

Poseidon raised an eyebrow but didn’t look at Killian. “And what you guys are planning is not a high-risk bet?”

Killian smiled to himself. There was the defiance he needed, the edge on the forced smile of the other man’s mouth, the fisted hand that made him know that he got him.

“Of course it is, but with a much better pay off and the added insurance of good friends who will have your back.” He got closer to whisper in Poseidon’s ear. “We’re taking down the vault of 3 casinos on the busiest night of the year. We’ll each walk away with millions each.”

Killian pulled back to watch the surprise spread across Poseidon's face before continuing. “Your family, the one who loves you above all, needs one last job from you. After that, by all means, buy as many condos as you want in this rotten place and fry yourself under the sun until the day you die.”

He finished his drink, stood up, and slid a plane ticket to him. “First class, of course.” He gave Poseidon a final look. “People don’t change, Poseidon. And you - you were a god. We need you to pull this off.”

Without waiting for the man’s reply, he took off. He needed to get the fuck out of this State and back to a nice shaded corner of Nemo’s patio, pretending he was back at Tuscany. Back before his entire life got fucked up.

He couldn’t wait to pull this off so he could disappear from the map for a long season, and maybe - just maybe - search for the woman he hadn’t dare to track in the past few years.

/-/

A couple of days later, tucked into that shaded corner of Nemo’s patio and enjoying a good draft beer, Killian and Liam went through the crew they’d assembled.

“I’ve called Smee, he’s in.”

Liam snorted. “He’s always in. The guy worships you as if you were his master.” He leaned back, scanning his eyes across the patio and the pool.

Killian smirked. He’d met Smee on one of his first solo jobs, the ones where he’d first dared to break out from under Nemo and Liam’s tutelage. It had been a frightening moment, followed by the overwhelmingly liberating feeling of knowing he could stand on his two feet. That he could pull something off without their help. Smee had been nothing but a mousy young man then, afraid even of his own shadow and hesitant of speaking out loud. He had a nervous disposition and tended to fidget relentlessly with whatever knitted cap he was wearing, but he was the best at electronics Killian had ever found. It had been great to have him as first mate in that job and to team up with him ever since. The guy might be rough around the edges, and he should definitely be checked out for a few quirks, but Killian trusted him. And that counted for a lot in this business. If you couldn’t trust the people you were working with, then you were not safe in this job. That fact had cost Liam two years of his life and if this job went wrong, it would cost them all more than just a couple of years in prison. Gold was known for retaliating. They needed to be untraceable.

“He just knows which one of us is the best Jones, that is all,” Killian ran a hand through his hair. “Ariel and Eric?”

“Thrilled to be back on the game. Their honeymoon was all nice and exciting, but I think they were starting to get bored with one another. Plus you know those two enjoy the roleplaying aspect of the missions a little too much.”

Killian scrunched his face before ticking off the names with his fingers. Ariel, Eric, Ursula, Poseidon, Nemo, Henry, Smee, Milah, Liam and him. “Ten, we have ten.”

“Ten should do it, right?” Liam asked as he mentally reviewed the list as well. “We have transport and recon, electronics, munitions, an insider, a greaseman, an antagonizer, and the best impersonator alive.”

It should do. And yet…. Killian kept silent, his mind going over the crew again and again. Plans like this were a puzzle, and this one felt like it was missing a piece. There definitely was one, he could feel it in his bones. There was something that should be here and it wasn’t. Something - someone - that should be part of this.

“You think we need more, right? One more?” Liam was reading Killian’s thoughts with uncanny accuracy, his mind probably going to the same place Killian’s had gone to.

“We need one more, Liam. We need him.” Killian sighed, fidgeting with the scars underneath his tattoo. “Junior.”

When Liam’s eyes didn’t widen in surprise, Killian knew he was right and that his brother had already thought about it too.

“Are you sure?”

It was a bold move, and Killian wasn’t sure if there’d even be a pay off. But if the rumors he’s heard through the mill for the past few years were true, then they were ready.

“It’s time, Liam. Let’s get him.”

/-/

Chicago’s weather was more like it. Wind, rain, cold, snow. Killian took a deep, satisfactory breath as he let the cold air invade his lungs, feeling himself alive in the red of his cheeks and the chill in his fingers that made them feel sharper here than in the hot weather. He shoved his hands in his coat pocket, following his brother as they both boarded the train. Their mark was a few paces ahead of them in the car, and Killian watched as the lad picked several pockets with deadly accuracy. His demeanor was absolutely fucking perfect as he did it - sharp, precise in his movements, his clothing downright ordinary, and he wore a cap that hid his face from the cameras. He looked like any other twenty-something student with a backpack.

It was brilliant. He was brilliant.

It made Killian want to shed a bloody tear or two right in the middle of the car.

As if Liam could read his mind, his brother turned over and made a silent motion, urging him to maintain his bloody composure. Now was not the time to get all emotional over their half-brother being so bloody good at the family business.

Because that was exactly what they were looking at - Liam Oliver Jones Thompson, also known as Junior. He was the result of their father’s flagrant affair with a high society girl he had been conning, right after the bastard had abandoned both Liam and Killian to fend for themselves. True to form, he had taken off once he’d stripped the heiress of a hefty sum and left her disowned by her family, with a small baby, little means to support herself, and a penchant for cheap gin.

Life had not been kind for Junior, who pretty much had taken any chance he had to show off his skills and impress a father who was more content seducing his next prey than paying his son any attention. The old man had finally kicked the bucket a couple of years ago, right around the time Liam had gone to jail and just after Killian’s fallout in Tuscany. As a result, all chances to look up the kid had been put on hold as the brothers dealt with their own personal bullshit.

But now it was finally time to set things to straight.

Killian watched as Liam bumped slightly into Junior, letting the kid take his decoy wallet while he slid a card on the lad’s inner jacket pocket. The bastard was the smoothest son of a bitch he ever met when it came to picking pockets, and watching both brothers in action at the same time was more than Killian could take on such an emotional day. He turned around and quickly dried the tear that has escaped his eyes, hoping Liam hadn’t noticed.

Liam clasped his shoulder as the train stopped and the doors slide open. “You’re such a softie, Killian. Let’s get the hell out of this cold and go get a warm cup of coffee.”

“I know just the place.”

/-/

Killian felt the warmth of the mug transfer into his numb fingers and sighed with pleasure. No one made coffee as good as Intelligentsia's in Las Vegas, plus he’d sorely missed the type of weather that was perfect for sitting down inside with a cup of coffee as the snow fell outside. It soothed his nerves.

Liam, on the other hand, was fidgeting as if all his limbs were covered in ants.

“You think he knows the place?” he asked for the third time.

Killian chose to ignore his questions, instead taking a sip of his coffee and letting the flavor roll over his tongue. After another minute of Liam rattling their table with his knee, Killian finally lost his patience. “You need to cool it. Fidgeting around like a virgin debutante on their wedding night is not the first impression you want to make.”

His brother laughed and shook his head. “I know, I know it’s just-” Liam sighed and lifted his head. Whatever he was going to say was interrupted as Junior finally walked in.

He went directly to their table and tossed Liam’s card on the table. “What is the meaning of this?”

Liam seemed to finally pull himself together. “Do you know who I am?”

“I do now,” their brother spat. His resentment was clear in his tone and Killian could feel down to his bones all the anger and regret of someone who had been left behind and had to fend for himself. “Though I knew before. The two of you are hard to miss in this business.”

Liam smirked. “Junior.”

Junior’s glare was enough to silence Liam. “Don’t call me that.”

“What should I call you?”

“My name is Liam. But I guess that one is taken, isn’t it?” If the blush in Liam’s cheeks was any indication, the barb was cutting deep.

“It doesn’t have to be.” There was a softness to Liam’s voice, an understanding that was passing between the two brothers. One that for the first time in his life was leaving Killian on the outside. He wasn't jealous, per se, as he could only imagine what was going through the heads of two people who were coming to terms to the fact that their father hadn’t cared enough to even name them differently. It was a punch in the gut for the young as much as it was for the old.

Junior sighed, running his hand through his hair in an unmistakably Jones trademark move before taking a seat at the table. “You can call me LJ, I guess.”

“LJ it is.” Liam slid a plane ticket across the table to him. “In or out, brother?”

“I’m not your brother.”

It was a defensive move. Killian could recognize all the signs in his clenched jaw and downcast eyes.

“Yes, you are,” Killian said with a conviction he hadn’t realized he had until he heard the denial tumble out of his younger half-brother’s mouth. “And this here? This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

The words did their job as LJ’s curiosity was obviously peaked as he quickly rearranged himself on the seat and glanced over them thoroughly. “What’s the plan?”

“We can’t tell you here.” Killian noticed LJ’s skepticism and lifted a finger, pointing at him. “But what I can tell you is that if we do this, it will be major. It will be our names - your name - surpassing any other bullshit Brennan might have done. This is it, brother. And in order to pull it off, I need the best and most nimble fingers in the business. There’s only two people in the world that are that good. And you’re one of them.”

“Who’s the other one?”

Liam saluted. “Guilty as charged. But I’m not as nimble as you are. Plus, two years in prison have left me rusty and recognizable.”

“So you need a replacement? Is that it?”

It was like advancing one step and backtracking five where LJ was concerned. They were treading in muddy waters with a brother who was desperate to be part of the business but still wasn’t sure he wanted to be part of the family.

“No, it’s not like that,” Liam amended, trying to find the right words.

LJ swallowed, his finger tracing a pattern over the surface of the table. “Do you know if there are more of... of us?”

Liam looked taken aback and exchanged a quick look with Killian.

Killian sighed, fidgeting with his mug before meeting his brother’s eyes. “Two more, both girls. Ages fourteen and twelve. Their mothers were welcomed back into their families and the girls are being raised away from this all. We tried to contact them, but we were politely asked to back away.” It hadn’t been polite at all, but that was neither here nor there.

“Lucky for them,” LJ mumbled. There was a remorse in his eyes that all but broke Killian’s heart.

“Liam,” he said, stressing his brother’s name. “Come to Vegas with us. Be a part of something. It’s time for you to join the family business.”

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Text

"Vietnam as it really was"

Oliver Stone sprang up in bed and found fear staining his sheets. A dream had startled him awake. He was 16 years out of Viet Nam, but in the dream, "they had shipped me back. Somehow they found me at the age of 38 and sent me back. I woke up in a sweat, in total terror." That was two years ago. Now Stone, who earned a Bronze Star and a MASH unit's worth of physical and emotional wounds in the jungles of Viet Nam, has transformed his war experience -- the bad dream he lived through for 15 months in 1967-68 -- into a film called Platoon. With craft, crackle, a little bombast and plenty of residual rage, he has created a time-capsule movie that explodes like a frag bomb in the consciousness of America, showing how it was back then, over there.

Begin with a birth: a baby-faced soldier, Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), is delivered from the womb of a transport plane into the harsh light of Viet Nam. He will find death soon enough: four patrols in the film, four wrenching revelations. On Chris' first night patrol he watches, paralyzed with fear, as the enemy approaches and another new boy dies. On a second patrol the platoon enters a village that might be My Lai; anger goads Chris to spit bullets at the feet of a petrified Vietnamese, and before the day is over the group's leader, Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger), has seen to the slaughtering of villagers before the entire place is torched. During a third battle, Barnes tracks down a woods-wise sergeant, Elias (Willem Dafoe), who had interrupted Barnes' massacre, shoots him and leaves him for dead. On the final patrol Chris flips into heroism or psychosis, wipes out a nest of North Vietnamese and confronts the demon he has almost become. End with a murder -- the last of too bloody many.

Welcome to the old nightmare -- the one neither Stone nor the 2.7 million American soldiers who went to Viet Nam can shake. Welcome back to the war that, just 20 years ago, turned America schizophrenic. Suddenly we were a nation split between left and right, black and white, hip and square, mothers and fathers, parents and children. For a nation whose war history had read like a John Wayne war movie -- where good guys finish first by being tough and playing fair -- the polarization was soul-souring. Americans were fighting themselves, and both sides lost.

Platoon pushes the metaphor further, thousands of miles away from the "world," into the combat zones of Nam. Platoon says that American soldiers -- the young men we sent there to do our righteous dirty work -- turned their frustrations toward fratricide. In Viet Nam, Stone suggests, G.I.s re-created the world back home, with its antagonisms of race, region and class. Finding no clear and honorable path to victory in the booby-trapped underbrush, some grunts focused their gunsights on their comrades. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army (NVA) were shadowy figures in this family tragedy; stage center, it was sibling riflery. Stone's achievement is to pound and hack this theme into a ripping yarn about a good man, an evil man and an Everyman -- a young, romanticized Oliver Stone -- suspended between them with his life and ideals in the balance. In vivid imagery and incendiary action, Stone's film asks of our soldiers, "Am I my brother's killer?" The answer is an anguished yes.

And a resounding "you bet" to the question, Can a ferocious movie about an unpopular war, filmed on the cheap with no stars and turned down by every major studio, find success, controversy and the promise of an Oscar statuette at the end of the tunnel? In its early limited opening, Platoon is already a prestige hit, and the film shows signs of becoming a blockbuster as it opens across the country over the next three weeks. It has captivated intellectuals, movie buffs and urban grunts -- astonishing, across-the-board appeal for a hellacious sermon. It has ignited a fire storm of debate, from political swamis and Viet vets, on its merits as art and history. It is the fountainhead for a freshet of Viet Nam exploration: We Can Keep You Forever, a BBC documentary about the mystery surrounding MIAs, will be aired Wednesday in 21 U.S. cities, and this spring will see two new movies set in Viet Nam, The Hanoi Hilton and Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. In a movie season of Trekkies, Dundees and dentist-devouring houseplants, Oliver Stone has proved that a film can still roil the blood of the American body politic. Platoon the picture is now Platoon the phenomenon.

It is a picture first and foremost, a series of pictures that lodge in the mind with other indelible images of war. The prop wash from a landing helicopter blows the tarpaulins off three bodies, their shrouds torn off, their makeshift graves defiled. In the village, after the slaughter, the soldiers carry Vietnamese children on their shoulders -- G.I. Joes, big brothers to the kids whose village they have just destroyed -- and the soldier who bashed a man's head takes a tourist snapshot of the holocaust. More than any other film, Platoon gives the sense -- all five senses -- of fighting in Viet Nam. You can wilt from the claustrophobic heat of this Rousseauvian jungle; feel the sting of the leeches as they snack on Chris' flesh; hear all at once the chorus of insects, an enemy's approaching footsteps on the green carpet and Chris' heartbeat on night patrol. The film does not glamourize or trivialize death with grotesque special effects. But it jolts the viewer alive to the sensuousness of danger, fear and war lust. All senses must be alert when your life is at stake, and Oliver Stone is an artist-showman who can make movies seem a matter of life and death.

Until Dec. 19, though, when Platoon opened, Hollywood had thought the picture a matter of indifference. It had taken Stone ten hungry years to get the project going. "For two years in the late '70s," says Producer Martin Bregman, "I banged on every door in California to get it done, but at that time Viet Nam was still a no-no." Tom Berenger, the film's showcase psychopath, imagines that "it must have made Stone feel like an old man, carrying the project around for so long. He said it broke his heart." Then something interesting happened: people went for Platoon. Most critics were impressed, many were impassioned, and even those who trashed the picture helped make it the season's top conversation piece. Soon long lines were forming outside the movie's Times Square flagship -- at lunchtime, on weekdays, in the hawk bite of a January wind -- and after midnight in early- to-bed Hollywood. In 74 theaters on the Jan. 9-11 weekend, Platoon averaged more than $22,000, the highest per-screen take of any new film.

In the industry, Stone's old colleagues and fellow directors have laid on their benedictions. Woody Allen calls it a "fine movie, an excellent movie." Says Steven Spielberg: "It is more than a movie; it's like being in Viet Nam. Platoon makes you feel you've been there and never want to go back." James Woods, who starred in Stone's previous film, Salvador, calls him an "artist whose vision transcends politics. Everyone from the ex-hippie to the ex-grunt can be moved by Platoon. And his passion isn't bogus -- he doesn't play Imagine at the end of the film to break people's hearts." Brian De Palma, who filmed Scarface from a Stone script, sees him achieving a volcanic maturity in Platoon: "He has now channeled his feeling and energy into a cohesive dramatic work. He's an auteur making a movie about what he experienced and understands. Seeing Platoon get through the system makes the soul feel good."

With its critical, popular and insider acclaim swelling, Platoon began to shoulder its way toward the front rank of Oscar favorites. By now it would have to be counted as the front runner, and Hollywood is furrowing its back with self-congratulatory pats for making this big bold message movie. To Stone, Hollywood's claim of paternity for Platoon must seem a rich joke. He and Hollywood both know that Platoon -- like The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, The Boys in Company C, The Killing Fields and nearly all the serious movies about the war in Southeast Asia -- secured its major financing from foreign producers. "It was a picture we wanted to support," says John Daly, chairman of Britain's Hemdale Pictures, which also produced Salvador. "We respect Oliver's passions. Besides, he spent only $6 million on Platoon" -- about half the budget of a typical Hollywood film.

The typical film, though, does not provoke a political free-for-all. Many conservatives have taken up arms against Platoon. In the far-right Washington Times' Insight magazine, John Podhoretz castigates it as "one of the most repellent movies ever made in this country." The film, he says, "blackens the name and belittles the sacrifice of every man and woman who served the United States in the Viet Nam War (including Stone)." Politicians are eager to return the salvos. Former Senator Gary Hart, aware of the electorate's fondness for presidential candidates with movie credentials, campaigns for the film by urging that "every teenager in America should see Platoon."

Now ask a man who's been there: David Halberstam, who covered the war for the New York Times and, in The Best and the Brightest, documented two Administrations' slides into the Big Muddy. "Platoon is the first real Viet Nam film," Halberstam proclaims, "and one of the great war movies of all time. The other Hollywood Viet Nam films have been a rape of history. But Platoon is historically and politically accurate. It understands something that the architects of the war never did: how the foliage, the thickness of the jungle, negated U.S. technological superiority. You can see how the forest sucks in American soldiers; they just disappear. I think the film will become an American classic. Thirty years from now, people will think of the Viet Nam War as Platoon."

Neither Sly Stallone nor Oliver Stone can put the whole picture of Viet Nam on a movie screen. There were 2.7 million stories in the naked jungle. Each veteran has his own view of the war, and each will have his own vision of Platoon. More than a few are disturbed by its presentation of a military unit at war with itself. Says Bob Duncan, 39, who served in the 1st Infantry at the same time Stone was in the 25th: "He managed to take every cliche -- the 'baby killer' and 'dope addict' -- that we've lived with for the past 20 years and stick them in the movie about Viet Nam." Says another veteran, Nick Nickelson, 43: "I hope this doesn't bring back those old depictions. God help us, I don't want to go back into a closet again."

Other vets deny the prevalence of dope smoking and the depiction of military officers as either psychos or cowards. But John Wheeler, 42, a veteran who is president of the Center for the Study of the Viet Nam Generation in Washington and chairman of the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial Fund, argues that "there were drug cultures; there were green lieutenants. Stone wanted to clean out the festering part of the wound. The next Viet Nam movie may be the one that tells the whole truth: that we were the best-equipped, best-trained army ever fielded, but against a dedicated foe in an impossible terrain. It was a state-of-the-art war on both sides. But Platoon is a new statement about Viet Nam veterans. Before, we were either objects of pity or objects that had to be defused to keep us at a distance. Platoon makes us real. The Viet Nam Memorial was one gate our country had to pass through; Platoon is another. It is part of the healing process. It speaks to our generation. Those guys are us."

Listen to these guys, and you may suspect that Platoon is not so much a movie as a Rorschach blot. But that is part of the caginess of Stone's approach. The French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard once wrote that when a good film is also a popular film, it is because of a misunderstanding. Platoon could very well be misunderstood into superhit status. The army of Rambomaniacs will love the picture because it delivers more bang for the buck; all those yellow folks blow up real good. Aging lefties can see the film as a demonstration of war's inhuman futility. Graybeards on the right may call it a tribute to our fighting men, in whatever foreign adventure. The intelligentsia can credit Platoon with expressing, in bold cinematic strokes, Stone's grand themes of comradeship and betrayal. And the average youthful moviegoer -- too young to remember Viet Nam even as the living-room war -- may discover where Dad went in the 1960s and why he came home changed or came home in a body bag.

"In any other war, they would have made movies about us too. Dateline: Hell!, Dispatch from Dong Ha, maybe even A Scrambler to the Front . . . But Viet Nam is awkward, everybody knows how awkward, and if people don't even want to hear about it, you know they're not going to pay money to sit there in the dark and have it brought up." So wrote Michael Herr in Dispatches, published in 1977, a year before the first spate of Viet Nam dramas. (The mid-'60s had offered a couple of World War II wheezes disguised as topical films: A Yank in Viet-Nam, so poorly received that it changed its name to Year of the Tiger, and John Wayne's hilariously wrongheaded The Green Berets, with its famous climax of the sun setting in the east.) 1978 brought three pictures -- Coming Home, The Boys in Company C and The Deer Hunter -- that touched on Viet Nam, and the following year Francis Coppola released Apocalypse Now.

Trouble was, most of these films were not about Viet Nam. Coming Home was a disabled-vet love story -- The Best Years of Our Lives with Jon Voight in the Harold Russell role. The Deer Hunter was . . . well, what was it? An incoherent parable about male bonding through Russian roulette. Bats and beautiful, it stood like Ishmael on the prow of its pretensions and declared, "Call me masterpiece." Apocalypse Now was fine as long as it accompanied its doomed, questing hero (played by Martin Sheen, Charlie's father) upstream on the River Styx; then it fogged off into fantasyland with Marlon Buddha. Only Company C, a standard-issue war film about recruits betrayed by their incompetent officers, spent much time in a Nam combat zone. But it really resided, with The Green Berets, in the twilight zone of World War II gestures and bromides.

Hollywood (and not just Hollywood) refused to see that Viet Nam was different. All the old givens -- beau geste, military master plans, unswerving belief in the officer class -- were fatally irrelevant to a guerrilla war. Forget the World War II narrative line of tanks and tactics, which moved with the ponderous sweep of a Golden Age Hollywood plot. Viet Nam, set in jungles without beginning or end, was a flash of episodic, aleatory explosions; it was modernism brought to war. And a new kind of war demanded a new look at the war-movie genre. Platoon fills the bill. It is a huge black slab of remembrance, chiseled in sorrow and anger -- the first Viet Nam Memorial movie.

Though Platoon is a breakthrough, it is not a breakaway. The film is traditional enough to connect with a mass audience. In its story line it holds echoes of Attack!, Robert Aldrich's 1956 psychodrama, in which a World War II infantry company is torn by a mortal struggle between two officers -- one messianic, the other deranged -- while a young man's loyalty hangs in the balance. Platoon's narration, in the form of Chris' letters to his grandmother, is often as stilted and redundant as silent-movie title cards. When a naive new boy shows Chris a photo of his sweetheart, you just know that, in the best '40s-movie fashion, the guy's a goner.

There are darker currents, too, of a passive racism. The black soldiers are occasionally patronized and sentimentalized; they stand to the side while the white soldiers grab all the big emotions. And the Vietnamese are either pathetic victims or the invisible, inhuman enemy. In the scheme of Platoon (and not just Platoon) they do not matter. The nearly 1 million Vietnamese casualties are deemed trivial compared with America's loss of innocence, of allies, of geopolitical face. And the tragedy of Viet Nam is seen as this: not that they died, but that we debased ourselves by killing them.

Of course, Platoon need not be every possible Viet Nam film to be the best one so far. It is enough that Stone has devised a drama of palpable realism that is also a metaphor for the uncivil war that raged in the U.S. and can flare up anytime in any family. Indeed, at the film's molten core is the tug of wills between two strong men, outsize figures of shameless strutting charisma, for parentage of their platoon and for their new recruit, Chris. Barnes, the staff sergeant, could be Chris' legal father; Elias, the romantic renegade, could be a spiritual father, even after his death. They are like Claudius and the Ghost wrestling for Hamlet's allegiance.

Both men are legendary soldiers who have survived long years in Viet Nam -- Elias by a kind of supernal sylvan grace, Barnes by simply refusing to die. Elias is Jesus crossed with Jim Morrison. He will literally take a load off Chris' shoulders, or share a fraternal toke with Chris through the barrel of a rifle, or moon over the night stars, or smile ingenuously at his killer. He is hard to know and harder to destroy, a creature of Stone's wild literary sentiment. Barnes, who says of some fresh corpses, "Tag 'em and bag 'em," has no sentiment at all. When he pulls a steaming metal shard out of a wounded G.I.'s side, it seems as much to display his expertise as to relieve the man's pain. He will do anything to achieve his objective: lead a suicide mission or send his rival on one; murder a village woman in cold blood or taunt his men toward murdering him. Chris, who feels an irresistible kinship to both men, says they were "fighting for possession of my soul." The film's most controversial question is, Who won?

At this point, readers who have not seen Platoon are excused for the next two paragraphs. The others, the grizzled vets, can ponder Chris' motives and actions at the film's climax. He believes (and we know) that Barnes has killed Elias in the jungle. He has already considered taking murderous revenge and been told, "The only thing that can kill Barnes is Barnes." On his last patrol, Chris' suicidal resolve turns him into a mean, obscene fighting machine -- a rifle with a body attached, as reckless as Barnes, as resourceful as Elias -- and he leaves half a dozen NVA in his wake. Now Barnes finds Chris and is ready to kill him when a blast knocks them unconscious. Later Chris revives and finds the injured Barnes ordering him to get a medic. The young man lifts his weapon and, when Barnes says, "Do it," does the bastard in.

In the movie theaters, this illegal shooting usually gets a big hand. Righteous vengeance. Good guy kills bad guy. It is the kind of movie catharsis that may make Platoon a megahit. But can Chris or the audience take moral satisfaction in this deed? Which "father" has he followed? Has Chris become like Elias, back from the grave to avenge his own murder? "You have to fight evil if you are going to be a good man," Stone says. "That's why Chris killed Barnes. Because Barnes deserved killing." Or has he emulated his enemy? Has he become Barnes in order to kill him? Stone has another answer: "I also wanted to show that Chris came out of the war stained and soiled -- all of us, every vet. I want vets to face up to it and be proud they came back. So what if there was some bad in us? That's the price you pay. Chris pays a big price. He becomes a murderer." A good man, and a murderer? It is a tribute to Platoon's cunning that it can sell this dilemma both ways, and a mark of Stone's complexity that he can argue either side and believe both.

The dichotomy was bred in him. Stone was born in 1946, the only child of a Jewish stockbroker and the French Catholic girl he met just after V-E day while serving as a colonel on Eisenhower's staff. Lou Stone wrote a monthly newsletter about economics and politics; his son describes the style as "right-wing Walter Lippmann, a view of the world every month. My father believed that life was hard. The important thing was to make a living." Jacqueline Stone was just the opposite: inexhaustibly sociable, the original bete de fete. "My mother loved movies," Stone says, "and every Monday I'd play hooky, and we'd go see two or three movies. From the start, I had the contradiction in me: my mother's outgoing, optimistic, French side and the dark, pessimistic, Jewish side of my father."

The Stones lived in Manhattan town houses and Stamford, Conn., homes; Oliver went to Manhattan's tony Trinity School and the Hill School in Pottstown, Pa.; he summered with his maternal grandparents and spoke French before he learned English. (From Viet Nam, Oliver would write his grandmother versions of the letters that Chris reads in Platoon.) At five he composed skits for a marionette show, casting his French cousins in the parts. At seven he wrote stories. To earn a quarter for a Classic comic book, he would write a theme each week for his father. And at nine he started work on a book, 900 pages about his family and his life.

Oliver stopped writing the book when he was twelve; the family stopped when Oliver was 16. "The news of their divorce came as a total shock," Stone recalls. "The Hill School headmaster was the one who told me. And when they were divorced, my father gave me the facts of life. He told me that he was heavily in debt. He said, 'I'll give you a college education, and then you're on your own. There's literally no money.' "

Lou Stone never recovered financially. "And yet," his son says, "I think his reversal helped push me to leave my privileged childhood behind. I finished Hill and spent a year at Yale, but I saw myself as a product -- an East Coast socioeconomic product -- and I wanted to break out of the mold. Then I read Lord Jim. Conrad's world was exotic and lush; it exercised a tremendous allure for me." It also propelled Oliver into a teaching job at a Chinese Catholic school in a Saigon suburb. It was 1965, the year a half million Yank soldiers landed in Viet Nam, and Stone was 18 years old. "I woke up in Asia," he says, "and it became an orphan home for me. It was everything I thought it would be: the heat, the green seas, the bloodred sunsets. In Saigon, the G.I.s from the 1st Infantry Division were just arriving. There were guys walking around with pistols, no curfews, shoot-outs in the streets. The place was like Dodge City."

Itinerary for a young wanderluster: on a merchant marine ship from Saigon to Oregon; in Guadalajara, Mexico, writing 400 pages of a novel; back to Yale, then dropping out a second and last time to concentrate on his writing. The book was now 1,400 pages. "It started out as a boy's suicide note -- not that I was going to commit suicide, but I was very depressed. It was Jack London- type experiences in a Joycean style. Totally insane, with great passages of lyricism here and there. I thought it was the best thing since Rimbaud. And when Simon & Schuster rejected it, I gave up. I threw half the manuscript in the East River and said, 'My father is right. I'm a bum.' I felt the solution was total anonymity. I had to atone. So I joined the Army. They'd cut my hair, and I'd be a number. To me the American involvement was correct. My dad was a cold warrior, and I was a cold-war baby. I knew that Viet Nam was going to be the war of my generation, and I didn't want to miss it. I must say, my timing was impeccable." If the young man had failed as Rimbaud, he might make it as Rambo.

Nope. "My first day in Viet Nam," Stone says, "I realized, like Chris in Platoon, that I'd made a terrible mistake. It was on-the-job training: Here's your machete, kid; you cut point. You learn if you can, and if not you're dead. Nobody was motivated, except to get out. Survival was the key. It wasn't very romantic." Each of the three combat units he served in was divided into antagonistic groups, as in the film: "On one side were the lifers, the juicers ((heavy drinkers)) and the moron white element. Guys like Sergeant Barnes -- and there really was a sergeant as scarred and obsessed as Barnes -- were in this group. On the other side was a progressive, hippie, dope- smoking group: some blacks, some urban whites, Indians, random characters from odd places. Guys like Elias -- and there really was an Elias, handsome, electric, the Cary Grant of the trenches. They were out to survive this bummer with some integrity and a sense of humor. I fell in with the progressives -- a Yale boy who heard soul music and smoked dope for the first time in his life."

Most of Platoon's starkest events come from Stone's backpack of Viet Nam memories. "I saw the enemy for the first time on my first night ambush," he recalls, "and I froze completely. Thank God the guy in the next position saw them and opened up. The ensuing fire fight was very messy. I was wounded in the back of the neck -- an inch to the right and I'd have been dead -- and the guy next to me had his arm blown off." He emptied his rifle clip at a man's feet, as Charlie does in the movie. "He wouldn't stop smiling," says Stone, "and I just got pissed off and lost it. But I did save a girl who was being raped by two of the guys; I think they would've killed her. I went over and broke it up. Another kid -- he's like Bunny ((Kevin Dillon)) in the movie -- clubbed this old lady to death and then kind of boasted about it. We killed a lot of innocents."

The battle at the end of the film was based on a New Year's Day skirmish less than a mile from the Cambodian border. "They hit us with about 5,000 troops that night. They laid bombs right on top of us; we dropped bombs right on them. It's possible that our high command was using us as bait to draw the Viet Cong out so we could inflict heavy casualties. We lost about 25 dead and 175 wounded; we killed about 500 of them. Their bodies were scraped up by bulldozers, just like in the movie. For that battle our platoon was on the inner perimeter, but two weeks later we went back into the same area and got hit by an ambush, like the one that gets Elias. We took about 30 casualties, and I don't think we got one of them."

For all the horrors of his season in hell, Stone admits he got what he went for, as a budding artist ravenous for material in the raw: "I saw combat at the ground level. I saw people die. I killed. I almost was killed. Almost immediately I realized that combat is totally random. It has nothing to do with heroism. Cowardice and heroism are the same emotion -- fear -- expressed differently. And life is a matter of luck. Two soldiers are standing two feet apart. One gets killed, the other lives. I was never a religious person -- I was raised Protestant, the great compromise -- but I became religious in Viet Nam. Possibly I was saved for a reason. To do some work. Write about it. Make a movie about it."

It would take Stone almost a decade, until 1976, before he could write the script of Platoon, and another decade to put it on the screen. But first he had to take his high, wired act on the road. The same month he arrived back from Viet Nam, he was busted for carrying an ounce of marijuana across the Mexico-U.S. border, and called his father, saying, "The good news is that I'm out of Viet Nam. The bad news is that I'm in a California jail, facing five to 20." Stone says his father helped get the charges dropped. "That was my homecoming," he says. "I got a true picture of the States. I hated America. I would have joined the Black Panthers if they'd asked me. I was a radical, ready to kill." Back home his mother noticed the change: "As a little boy he was impeccable. He had his valet; his closet was immaculate. But when he returned he was a mess, always leaving things on the floor. He was a different boy."

And now an unsolicited testimonial: "I know it sounds corny, but I was saved by film school." He enrolled at New York University on the G.I. Bill. "To be able to study movies in college, it was any movie buff's dream. It was cool too, like studying to be an astronaut. Martin Scorsese was my first teacher. He was like a mad scientist, with hair down to here. He was someone on an equal wave of nuttiness. And he helped channel the rage in me." Stone made a short film for Scorsese's class called Last Year in Viet Nam, about a vet wandering the New York streets; in another, Michael and Marie, Oliver's father played the victim. "Oliver was alienated, sarcastic and brooding," says his film-school friend Stanley Weiser, who is collaborating with Stone on a script about Wall Street crime. "A real macho man who carried the torture of Viet Nam with him but never talked about it."

In 1971 Stone graduated and married a Lebanese woman working at the Moroccan delegation to the United Nations; they divorced five years later. He wrote eleven scripts in his spare time, directed a low-budget Canadian thriller called Seizure, and in 1975 got an agent through the graces of Screenwriter Robert Bolt. A year later, as the tall ships clogged New York harbor, Stone sat down and wrote Platoon. "Essentially what I wanted to say was, Remember. Just remember what that war was. Remember what war is. This is it. I wanted to make a document of this forgotten pocket of time. I felt Viet Nam was omitted from history books. Like a battle I fought in during the war: a lot of people got hurt that day, and it wasn't even listed as a battle by the Army, as if they didn't want to admit the casualties we suffered. The script I wrote is pretty much the one I shot ten years later. But no studio wanted to make it; it was too 'depressing' and 'grim.' So I buried it again, figuring that the truth of that war would never come out because America was blind, a trasher of history."

A wild man who becomes a witness: that was Oliver Stone reborn. As he scythed his way through the Hollywood jungle, Stone earned the rep of a specialist with a social agenda. Four of the scripts that bear his name -- Midnight Express, Scarface, Year of the Dragon and 8 Million Ways to Die -- cataloged the seductive evils of the drug trade. Stone's third feature as writer-director (after Seizure and, in 1981, The Hand) laced his usual hip rants on pharmacology with a smart, anguished newsphoto montage of one more Third World nation torn by civil war and shadowed by the looming hulk of American weaponry. This was the gallivanting political melodrama Salvador. Stone dedicated the film to his recently deceased father. "I remember one conversation we had right before he died. He said, 'You'll do all right. There'll always be a demand for great stories and great storytellers.' So finally he forgave me for going into the film business."

In Salvador, Stone was learning to wind the cinematic mechanism until it coiled with productive tension, both on the screen and on the set. "Working with Stone was like being caught in a Cuisinart with a madman," James Woods opines. "And he felt the same about me. It was two Tasmanian devils wrestling under a blanket. But he's a sharp director. He starts with a great idea, delegates authority well, scraps like a street fighter, then takes the best of what comes out of the fracas." Says Dale Dye, the Marine captain who hazed Platoon's actors to firm them up for filming: "Oliver thrives on chaos, throwing together a crew of such diverse backgrounds and ideologies that there's constant friction. It's the kind of energy he thrives on." Platoon's star, Charlie Sheen, 21, found the director "brutally honest. Which is why we clicked. After a scene he'd say, 'You sucked' or 'You nailed it.' That's just my style."

Right now Stone is Hollywood's hot new guy. He is even entertaining the improbable idea of a Platoon TV series. But don't expect Stone to direct Indiana Jones III. Says Stanley Weiser: "Oliver's been around the block ten times and won't be seduced by money. He's not an easy lay." Stone and his second wife, Elizabeth, 37, look the family-album picture of swank domesticity in their Santa Monica home. They swore off drugs a few years ago, and now seem addicted only to each other and their little son Sean. "Success and Sean have made Oliver much mellower," Elizabeth notes. "But he's still a compulsive worker. Always reading or writing, he simply loves ideas. He's filled with them, and he's thrilled with them."

One suspects that the old troublemaker will find new trouble spots in the political landscape; the soapbox spieler will continue his spellbinding harangues. His mind and moral sense are too restless to relax in the glow of celebrity and the promise of statuettes. But for the moment, Oliver Stone has found for himself the one plot twist he would never have put in Platoon: a happy ending to his Viet Nam nightmare.

-Richard Corliss, Time magazine cover story, Jan 26 1987 [x]

#oliver stone #platoon #the vietnam war #time magazine #cover story #ptsd #richard corliss

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thestuckylibrary · 7 years

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Welcome, new mods!

This week we’re welcoming five new mods to help deal with the workload of thestuckylibrary! In a new move, us librarians are telling you, the readers a bit about ourselves. Get to know your mods a little better!

Mod Karin

I’m a biro ace from Canada. I use she/her pronouns. Melancholic, a dog person, asthmatic. I’m an Art History student in my early 20s. I’m definitely an Academic™, I love research, medieval art, early renaissance art, most 1850-1945 art, talking at length about things that interest me and,Scifi and fantasy, historical fiction and writing about things. I have Beef with Greenburg.

I started shipping stucky in like mid 2013 after I binged all marvel movies in a single night after being dragged to see Iron Man 3. At that point I wasn’t into the tumblr side of mcu fandom and just read the few fics there were on AO3. However, that all changed after I saw TWS. Full tilt mcu tumblr multishipping since April that year and I haven’t looked back. I joined the library June 2015 and have been modding ever since, albeit with a bit of a break summer 2016. It made sense as a move to me- I love fanfiction, tend to mostly read stucky fic, love organization and giving recs and have experience with the idea having worked in libraries for many years.

I’m also a traditional artist. I usually work in pencil, pastels or charcoal but I occasionally work in acrylic, oil, ceramics and ink. I make fanart, you can check it out on my fandom blog @samthebirdbae! My specialty is Bucky’s glorious long hair.

Mod Annie

what’s up i don’t know how to use the cool drop down description kinda formatting bc i suck at tumblr also i hate using caps for anything. I’m a bi 18 (almost 19) year old from texas. she/her pronouns. I’m a figure skater and dancer. basically the best description for me is just child of preserum steve and natasha, as im actually very russian but im like 5'1 and have a list of health problems as long as my arm. you may or may not know me as that one black widow cosplayer who met sebastian last year and asked him to choke her. kinda problematic, i know, but also highkey awesome even though i definitely would not repeat. I’m currently not in school although I’m debating between possibly going into massage therapy or cosmetology. I was homeschooled and I grew up in like The Most Conservative christian home so i wasn’t allowed to listen to music or read books or watch any movies unless they were pre approved by my mom, and she was picky with even the stuff from the christian book store sooooo,,,, i didn’t really get into marvel or music or ANYTHING until i was about sixteen and i was finally allowed to use the internet and have a phone but after i finally watched the cap movies about a year and a half to two years ago I immediately fell in love and started shipping stevebucky. as I am a history NUT ofc my fav era is 40s pre/mid war. it’ll definitely show in my recs. I do write as well but i switch back and forth between stevebucky and harry styles fics and rn i don’t have nearly enough time to do either one between work and sports. (I am out rn over a knee injury that might end up requiring surgery so idk. maybe I’ll get The Time.)

Mod Blue

Hello, I’m a librarian from Belgium and the best part about my job is helping people to find what they’re looking for or to answer any question they might have to make their day a little easier. That goes from helping them find books and articles to helping them figure out where their class room is or how they’re supposed to make copies and prints. I’m delighted that I get to do a little more of the same here at the Stucky Library.

Mod Dee

hey friends~ my name is dee, i’m 21, and i’m from new zealand. (she/her.) i’m a history and mythology nerd and know a little too much about booby traps used in the vietnam war? oops. (i promise it’s from fic related research.) i have three cats and four dogs and a niece and they’re all like. the lights of my life tbh. i’m not currently studying, though i’m toying with the idea, now that i’ve found somewhere that actually offers creative writing as a full degree.

i started shipping stucky quite recently, like, probably early-2016, after i abruptly left my main fandom, and saw CA:TWS for the first time. it was like my eyes had been opened, and it was pretty magical tbh. i’ve been into marvel for a lot longer than that (since like 2012, i think) and ngl, my first love was tony stark. (do yall get leavers’ hoodies when you finish high school? we did. i got “stark” printed on mine in place of my own name. little did i know, that was only the beginning of my ventures in marvel fandom.)

within fandom, i’m a fic writer, and pretty much everything i write is au. (which u can find on my personal @jjjakesully if u so desire lmao) about 90% of what i read within fandom is au as well, because i like the idea of “no matter our circumstances, i’d still find and love you in each and every lifetime” and wow that sounds gooey but you get the point. this isn’t the first rec blog i’ve worked on, so like i have seen things and little of what you ask is going to shock me lmao.

Mod Julia

hi, guys! i’m julia (she/her), 24, english teacher from brazil. always tired, always anxious, always crying about stevebucky. i have a deep love for books and tiny fluffy animals.

i read my very first ever stucky fic the night after i saw catws at the theater. in an ~unforeseen turn of events, it totally took over my life. it was love at first ‘mistaken identity’ story, and i haven’t looked back since.

i’m also a fic writer! i’ve been writing for this pairing since 2015, and you can find all of that on my tumblr @hawkguyz. i’m particularly fond of AUs and tooth-rotting fluff. :D

#mod post #it's been over a month but hello!#it's us!

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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Fortnite is finally coming to Nintendo Switch. The massively popular battle game got a surprise launch today on the equally popular console, immediately after Nintendo announced the news at gaming industry conference E3 earlier in the morning.

The move is a win for gaming fans, who’ve long been awaiting the arrival of Fortnite on the hybrid console. It’s the latest in a string of wins for Nintendo, which staked its future on the Switch and wound up delivering the fastest-selling console of all time. Above all, it’s a win for Fortnite, the record-breaking game whose abrupt upswing in popularity sparked all the interest to begin with, and its developer, Epic Games.

Just how popular is Fortnite? For starters, it’s been raking in the cash, surpassing its predecessor, Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds (about which more in a moment), and earning more than $100 million per month in in-app purchases. Remember, this is a game that’s free to download and play, so that’s pretty epic. In February, it hit a record of 3.4 million people playing the game all at once, while its overall player base has reportedly passed 45 million.

So what’s made Fortnite such a smash, and why is it attracting so many different types of players? To understand that, we have to look at the types of games it’s emulating — and how it’s transcending them to create something new, trendy, and fun.

[embedded content]

The word “Fortnite” can imply one of two very different modes of playing.

There’s the original Fortnite, released last summer as an early-access title — in essence, a beta release — by Epic Games, longtime developers behind titles like Gears of War and Infinity Blade. Fortnite is what’s known as a “sandbox” game because it’s a nonlinear story and the emphasis for the player is on roaming around, exploring, and building the world while completing quests in your own good time. In other words, it’s like Minecraft.

But there’s a twist: In a game like Minecraft, you’re pretty much making your own objectives. In Fortnite, your objective is clear: build shelters and collect stuff that will help you survive the zombie apocalypse.

If you’ve ever thought about what weapons and strategies you would use to outwit the zombies, Fortnite allows you to live out your survivalist fantasies. Your goal is to build forts and other structures — from log cabin watchtowers to fully weaponized castles — that can survive fortnightly zombie onslaughts while being outfitted with booby traps and other devices. Fortnite is also a co-op game, which means you can play with a group of friends.

Oh, and unlike Minecraft, when the zombies show up, you can shoot them. A bunch.

When most people talk about playing Fortnite, however, they’re talking about playing the game with a special Battle Royale mode that draws a number of elements from the famous 2000 Japanese film, a pitch-black dystopian satire in which students are forced to compete in a kill-or-be-killed bloodbath.

It also borrows plenty from last year’s hit game Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, where up to 100 players can battle it out to be the last one standing. In other words, gamers play out the plot of Battle Royale, The Hunger Games, Sword Art Online, or any number of last-man-standing battle scenarios.

Witnessing the popularity of Battlegrounds, Epic Games quickly added a battle royale mode to Fortnite — but since the original Fortnite was only released in a limited format to begin with, they also released Fortnite: Battle Royale as its own new game, available to anyone and separate from the original. (For its part, Battleground’s developer is playing nice and welcoming its main competitor into the field.) The full release of the original Fortnite hasn’t even hit stores yet; meanwhile, its child, Fortnite: Battle Royale, has taken over gaming.

In Fortnite: Battle Royale, you’re not competing to survive zombies, but to outlast other people. And for many players, that’s where things get interesting.

There are two reasons Fortnite has been so popular, and they boil down to accessibility: The game has been made available for more people to play, in more ways.

Fortnite: Battle Royale was released as a free download for a variety of platforms in September 2017 and received a popularity boost in January when it added several areas to its world, including a city. Finally, in March, it was released for iOS, and its popularity ballooned. Despite only being released for iOS — an Android deploy is still months away, sorry, Android fans — the game’s mobile app immediately became the top-selling app in 13 countries and reportedly raked in $1.5 million during its first week alone.

The game’s upfront accessibility and ready deployment on multiple gaming consoles, from laptops to PlayStation to Xbox One, has played a major part in its popularity. But another huge boost to the game’s popularity has been cross-platform play — meaning you can play with your friends who are accessing it on a variety of devices and platforms.

This is a relatively rare innovation in the world of gaming, which has long been plagued by the difficulty of creating and accessing games for every console, let alone being able to play with friends who are using different devices. But Fortnite lets users who are playing on, say, an iPhone compete and play with friends who are on a laptop or a PlayStation.

Of course, it’s not a perfect system; for example, cross-play between your PlayStation and your friend’s Xbox is currently impossible — though Fortnite’s CEO Tim Sweeney says it’s not only imminent, but “inevitable,” getting at the importance of this aspect of gaming to the industry as a whole. Cross-platform gameplay to any degree is a huge win for gamers and appears to have played a huge role in boosting Fortnite’s popularity.

But perhaps the biggest factor in Fortnite’s success is what fans get when they enter the world of the game. Remember, it’s not just a shooter game and not just a giant world-building sandbox — it’s a combination of both.

So in Fortnite’s version of the battle royale, players also get to scale walls and knock down structures and play some sort of real-time combination of Jenga and parkour as they try to survive and outwit other players. And once you die, you can continue to watch the game play out through the camera of the person who killed you — which makes for a surprisingly enjoyable experience for the newly departed.

All of this allows players to adopt multiple modes of playing — including choosing to hide and watch, choosing to make up your own “the floor is lava!” challenge, and choosing to approach it like your own personal Most Dangerous Game. In essence, Fortnite: Battle Royale may be the first shooter game for players who don’t like shooter games, along with those who do.

That makes Fortnite poised to attract whole new audiences, even before the full release of Fortnite Save The World — that’s the original zombie mode, unlocked and out of beta — arrives at some nebulous point later this year. In the meantime, because Fortnite: Battle Royale is available pretty much everywhere as a free download, it’s easy to hop into. If you want to play with friends, then you all need to download the app on your own devices — make sure they’re all compatible first — and then register for an account with Epic Games.

From there, whether you decide to fight, hide, build, or frolic is all up to you.

Correction: This article originally described Fortnite as a first-person shooter game rather than a third-person shooter game.

Original Source -> How Fortnite leveled up, broke records, and changed gaming

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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