#tree Sparrow jason

[myshiptrashcan]

Tree Sparrow Jason is Complete

Here is the boi and his pretty wings COLORED.

Nick is next.

[storiesforallfandoms]

Masterlist 3!

Here’s the third masterlist for all of my works! If you want to check out more of my work, here’s the links for masterlist one and masterlist two Imagines marked * are smutty imagines! Imagines marked ` are requests! Imagines marked ⭐ are personal favorites!

IMAGINES

STRANGER THINGS small ~ jim hopper` dance with me ~ eddie munson ⭐ starry night ~ steve harrington* (part five) ⭐ at the hip ~ steve harrington` ⭐ triple date ~ steve harrington (part six) ⭐ the freak ~ steve harrington (part seven) ⭐ oblivious ~ eddie munson ⭐ jason doesn’t know ~ eddie munson ⭐ this is music ~ eddie munson` ⭐

SUPERNATURAL strange human feelings ~ castiel` cleaning ~ dean winchester`

HANNIBAL into fiction` sob story ~ hannibal lecter

THE BOYS obsession ~ billy butcher* ⭐ herogasm ~ soldier boy* ⭐ alone on christmas ~ billy butcher can’t get too close ~ billy butcher ⭐ change in a heartbeat ~ billy butcher ⭐ the bad room ~ homelander ⭐

THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY life father ~ diego hargreeves` rescue mission ~ klaus hargreeves’ ⭐

THE LAST OF US (HBO) friendly neighbors ~ joel miller ⭐ too sweet ~ joel miller

BARRY attraction ~ barry berkman` treat him better ~ barry berkman

AMERICAN HORROR STORY late night sins ~ xavier plympton (1984)*`

VICTORIOUS lost dog ~ tori vega` junker ~ beck oliver

HEMLOCK GROVE i don’t ever wanna see you with him ~ roman godfrey ⭐

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES roses are red ~ damon salvatore` ⭐

OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH captive ~ blackbeard/ed teach ⭐

PEAKY BLINDERS moved on ~ thomas shelby

FUTURE MAN winner ~ josh futturman* ⭐

GAME OF THRONES littlest lion ~ oberyn martell (part one) ⭐ freedom ~ oberyn martell (part two) ⭐

THE WITCHER destiny ~ geralt of rivia

DOCTOR WHO looks of a princess ~ eleventh doctor ⭐

BRIDGERTON by the lake ~ benedict bridgerton

THE GENTLEMEN the assistant ~ raymond smith ⭐

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN spirit of nature ~ jack sparrow`

THE MAZE RUNNER i’ll keep you safe ~ newt`

MARVEL how things are now ~ marc spector and steven grant` ⭐ kneel ~ loki* the most wonderful time ~ bucky barnes fast ~ pietro maximoff ⭐

1917 early morning ~ will schofield*`

THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT happy birthday ~ javi gutierrez ⭐

FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S i need someone older ~ william afton ⭐ the ice cream girl ~ mike schmidt

SALTBURN new toy ~ felix catton ⭐ partners ~ oliver quick ⭐

THE SANTA CLAUSE santa’s sister-in-law ~ bernard the elf

8 MILE one of the guys ~ jimmy smith jr ⭐

THE FALL GUY the space cowboy and the pa ~ tom ryder

A QUIET PLACE i’d find you in any life ~ eric ⭐

GLADIATOR II betrothed ~ emperor geta ⭐

PETE DAVIDSON your gift` favoritism`

HARRY STYLES the perfect tree a star in the making` sleepy head`

MACHINE GUN KELLY baby mama` ⭐ my queen*` getting your attention*` all the mistakes` not what it looks like` can’t keep doing this*`

EMINEM may the best artist win*` too close for comfort` ⭐ when it’s wrong but it feels right` in the dressing room*` he’s acting different` we have to stop meeting like this` every inch*` let’s surprise the world` i’m sorry i let you down`

GOODGUYFITZ wake up call*`

CORPSE HUSBAND letting go` they forgot` ⭐

ASHTON IRWIN home life` cover me*`

CONAN GRAY pushing`

MATTHEW LILLARD accidental drunk confessions`

JOHNNY KNOXVILLE feeling good*`

ALEX TURNER more than a song*` ⭐

BO BURNHAM can’t handle this right now ⭐ look at me*`

KRISTEN STEWART special customer`

TARON EGERTON he already has my approval ⭐

ROBERT PATTINSON my favorite superhero

GERARD WAY good girl*`

GWILYM LEE history repeats itself`

RYAN GOSLING play date`

JOSEPH QUINN bad idea, right? ⭐

RANBOO fluffy haired gamer boy`

JACOB ELORDI height advantage`

MOTLEY CRUE she is mine ~ mick mars`

CHRIS EVANS not used to normal` ⭐

SWAGGERSOULS our next step`

JSCHLATT too far ⭐ the hotel room* ⭐

JOHNNY DEPP just for us`

TRAVIS BARKER the parent trap`

SHIPS

family reunion ~ hermione granger x draco malfoy`

HEADCANONS

showing pedro pascal fan edits ⭐ sitting on jschlatt’s lap ⭐

NSFW ALPHABET

rook (jp capellette)*` eddie munson* ⭐ billy butcher* ⭐

[street-smarts00]

Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Drabble: Did he have passion?

The team is at Gideons cabin after his murder. Takes place in season 10 episode “Nelson’s Sparrow”

authors note: I haven’t written anything in years and had some motivation while watching criminal minds.

She walked outside the house onto the porch and place her hands in her pockets to hide them from the chill in the air. Spencer was standing outside looking into the trees. While she didn’t join the BAU until a few years after Gideons retirement, she knew he meant the world to Spencer. She knew he was his mentor and how close they were. She knew that when he left, the only goodbye he gave to the team, was a letter addressed to Spencer.

Every so often Spencer would talk about Gideon. Either recounting memories of his chess skills or previous cases he worked on. She was aware of his impact and achievements while working for the bureau, but she never met him.

She saw him wipe his face with his hands. For while she didn’t say anything to him. She was never one with words at a time like this, but after some thinking she found some, or more so someone else’s words.

“Hey Spence,” she calmly greeted when she walked up to him. He turned to look at her and he noticed she was also observing the birds in the trees as he just was.

A quiet “hi” escaped his lips. After a lingering moment he looked back at the woods.

“Do you remember that movie I showed you? Serendipity?” She asked.

His eyebrows furrowed and thoughts brought back to the present moment at her random question. “Of course,” he answered.

Of course he remembered watching that movie, and of course he remembers all the words said in it, but she recited it to him anyway.

“Towards the end of the movie, Jonathan’s best friend who writes obituaries for the times, he says “the Greeks didn't write obituaries. They only asked one question after a man died, Did he have passion?"

“Actually that most likely wasn’t true. Passion while a highly valued aspect of life in ancient Greece, it is unknown . . . “

“Spencer,” she interrupted once again in a calming tone.

He abruptly stopped his tangent and turned his face to her. He was met with her eyes starring back at him. “While I adore your tangents, humor me.” She turned her whole body to face him giving him her whole undivided attention. “Did Jason Gideon have passion?”

Spencer let the question linger in his mind. At the sound of chirping and shaking of leaves and branches he thought of birds. Gideon had a passion for birds. He possessed pictures and paintings of them. Gideon had a passion for chess. Spencer had frequently played with him.

He thought of the book he had just stuffed in his pocket, Gideons book and a passage he had just recently recited. Gideon had a passion for Sarah. She was very important to him and held a very special place in his heart.

His thoughts wandered to the other people in the book. Victims that Gideon saved from previous cases. Gideon had passion for his job. A passion for protecting and saving those who had been hurt by others. To save and protect life. Save someone’s child, parent, sibling, best friend, neighbor, coworker, lover.

Spencer took a deep shaky breath as a tear rolled down his cheek. She reached her hand up to cup his face and wiped her thumb across his cheek where his tears had fallen. He gently grabbed onto her wrist that was held up

He quietly spoke with a small crack in his voice.

“He did.”

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

Can we have some more of Constantine’s daughter x Jason ?

"What the bloody fuck are you doing?" Constantine yelled, watching you dart forward and drag Batman's injured Robin behind you.

The snow made it hard to see. Made it hard to tell what was happening. But- there was no mistaking that you were looking up at the hell hound; looking for all the world like a little sparrow facing down a falcon.

Zatana was injured. Healing but still to weak to do anything. And when you hurled the snowball to attract it's attention, to buy time, Constantine had been ready for you to be eaten.

But now, as he watched you bound through the snow, Robin keeping pace with you as you were headed towards the tree line he felt an uncomfortable jerk behind his ribs.

"Why do none of your sidekicks wear pants?" John asked, working on getting out of the chains he was bound in.

"Why didn't you teach your apprentice how to deal with a demon?" Bruce countered.

"Do you know how hard it is to parent the you out of your kid?" Constantine snorted

"You parent?" Bruce snarked, "When?"

[blue-florist]

Yk what I think would be rlly cute? If all of the Robins after Dick just picked a new bird, keep the colors or nah but the aesthetic doesn't change. Just so many cute bird names.

Better idea: They start out as Robin and THEN change it to NEW BIRDS!!

(I got a bit creative)

Exibit A: Dick aka Bluebird

I like it cuz it's A LOT of blue and tips of black while Dick's costume is VERY black with tips of blue. Ig he can do whatever since he never had a tradition to follow since he MADE the tradition, y'know?

Exibit B: Jason AKA Woodpecker (the Red Headed kind!!)

Ok let's be realistic that no way Jason would name himself some bird, but idk it could be like a nickname for him, just to include/annoy him :)

Exibit C: Tim AKA Cardinal (THAT SOULD BE HIS NAME WTF UR OLD NAME+ THE FIRST NAME OF THE GUYS THAT TRIED TO KILL YOU??? STUPID AND UNCREATIVE GO GET SMTH DECENT)

I love my boy Tim but I think we can all agree Tim "Detective better than Batman" Drake is pretty dumb choosing names (wth was "Drake"???) so instead I am doing as any DC fan would do and using canon as a basketball going in the trash. SO TIM'S NEW NAME IN CANON SHOULD BE CARDINAL AND I *WILL* FIGHT AND DIE FOR THIS.

Batgirls in my opinion did very much good in the criteria of names and following an aesthetic so Steph gets to stay as Spoiler cuz it's awesome. Kudos for jobe well done :)

Exibit D: Duke aka Goldfinch (or Gold, Goldie, Finch, y'know the drill)

I love Duke but I am renaming him cause "Signal" is a little too much to the left for me, back some steps up babe. I LOVE Goldfinches and since they are Backyard Birds and just active I think they fit him being in daylight.

Exibit E: Damian (???) AKA Sparrow

Idk much about Damian, but for him I chose Sparrow, specifically (image above) the Eurasian Tree Sparrow, cuz 1) it's cute and 2) it's not native to America, to still kinda represent the roots he has on his mother's side of the fam.

[titular-twins-tournament]

BRACKETS + ROUND 1 MASTERPOST

Below is a written version of brackets, including links to each poll

Fandom- Characters

GROUP A

A1. Sky Children of the Light- The Valley Elders (aka Sah and Mek) VS Devil May Cry- Dante and Vergil

A2. Lego Ninjago- Krux and Acronix (The Time Twins) VS The Evillious Chronicles- Riliane Lucifen d'Autriche and Allen Avadonia

A3. Roman Mythology- Romulus and Remus VS Sanders Sides- Roman and Remus Sanders

A4. Happy Tree Friends- Shifty and Lifty VS The Penumbra Podcast- Juno and Benzaiten Steel

A5. Blue Exorcist- Rin and Yukio Okumura VS Avatar the Last Airbender- Lo and Li

A6. IDOLiSH7- Nanase Riku and Kujo Tenn VS Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina- Vex and Vax

A7. Don’t Starve- Wendy and Abigail VS Legend of Korra- Eska and Desna

A8. The Parent Trap- Annie and Hallie VS Mother 3 (aka Earthbound)- Lucas and Claus

GROUP B

B1. A Song of Ice and Fire- Jaime and Cersie Lannister VS MCU- Wanda and Pietro Maximoff

B2. Masters of the Universe- Adam and Adora VS Dimension 20: A Crown of Candy- Jet and Ruby Rocks

B3. Super Mario Bros- Mario and Luigi VS Ducktales (2017)- Della and Donald Duck

B4. Ensemble Stars- Hinata and Yuta Aoi VS Mystic Messenger- 707 and Unknown (aka Saeyoung and Saeran Choi)

B5. The Adventure Zone- Lup and Taako VS The Suite Life of Zack & Cody- Zack and Cody

B6. Gravity Falls- Dipper and Mabel VS Obey Me!- Beelzebub and Belphegor

B7. Transformers- Sunstreaker and Sideswipe VS Haikyuu- Osamu and Atsumu Miya

B8. Honkai Impact 3rd- Liliya and Rozaliya Olenyeva VS All For the Game- Andrew and Aaron Minyard

GROUP C

C1. Bob’s Burgers- Andy and Ollie Pesto VS Pokémon- Emmet and Ingo

C2. Final Fantasy XIV- Alphinaud and Alisaie Leveilleur VS The Locked Tomb- Ianthe and Coronabeth Tridentarius

C3. Liv and Maddie- Liv and Maddie VS Greek Mythology- Apollo and Artemis

C4. Genshin Impact- Lumine and Aether VS Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- Leo and Donnie Hamato

C5. Trigun- Vash and Knives VS Twisted Wonderland- Jade and Floyd Leech

C6. Black Butler- Ciel and “Ciel” Phantomhive VS Cursed Princess Club- Gwen and Jaime

C7. Red VS Blue- Agent North Dakota and Agent South Dakota VS Animal Crossing- Timmy and Tommy

C8. Ace Attorney- Dahlia Hawthorne and Sister Iris VS Rugrats- Phil and Lillian

GROUP D

D1. The Twelfth Night- Viola and Sebastian VS Dungeons and Daddies- Lark and Sparrow Oak

D2. Dragonlance- Caramon and Raistlin VS Archie Comics- Cheryl and Jason Blossom

D3. Star Wars- Luke and Leia VS Ouran High School Club- Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin

D4. Steven Universe- The Rutile twins VS Disney Fairies- Tinkerbell and Periwinkle

D5. How To Train Your Dragon- Ruffnut and Tuffnut VS Highschool Musical- Sharpay and Ryan Evans

D6. Percy Jackson- Castor and Pollux VS Re: Zero- Rem and Ram

D7. Danganronpa- Junko Enoshima and Mukuro Ikusaba VS The Owl House- Edric and Emira Blight

D8. The Simarillion- Amrod and Amras VS Identity V- Joseph and Claude Desaulniers

[butcherlarry]

Exercise Fic Recs 15

Oh god, I’ve made 15 of these.  Welp, better continue!

The Shadow demon series by I_go_by_Faith  (Batman is a literal cryptid, and is bffs with Superman)

Predation (Devastation) by Maximum_Quinn  (More bat shifter AU!)

Author’s Note by Trekkele  (Jason wrote fanfic and Bruce was subscriber.  Jason updates a fic after he died, and that’s how Bruce finds out he’s alive.)

bloodletting by TheResurrectionist  (starwars/superbat fusion)

borderline by TheResurrectionist (bat fam sudden hive mind) 

My Own Desert Places by MemoryDragon  (a reread for me.  Ace Bruce Wayne)

I’ve reached a milestone at the coffeeshop I go to every Sunday.  They know my name!  I’ve finally become a Regular™.  My latte and croissant:

It’s funny.  The cardinal is the state bird of my home state of Ohio, but I see SO MANY in Kansas.  I have an app that’s pretty good at identifying bird calls, and 9 times out of 10, it’s a cardinal.  

Along the trails, there are some nice spots for you to sit and take in the view.  I just thought this scene was pretty.

I have found a new favorite bird.  A blue-gray gnatcatcher!  The are so TINY and ADORABLE.  They also like to hop around and not stay still, lol.

The tree swallows were out again!

Another cardinal

Lol, I just thought this picture of a cardinal and red-bellied woodpecker was funny.

I ALSO SAW A NEW BIRD!!!  A rose-breasted grosbeak.

My little white-throated sparrow.

A brown-headed cow bird.

I also thought this was a neat picture of a red-bellied woodpecker climbing around on the feeder.

Some pretty flowers.

I don’t know what this flower is, but it is SO COOL.

I just liked the name of this one.

This guy was super cool too!

You know me, I gotta take at least one picture featuring running water.

A neat bridge

This flower was cool too!

I also had five finches at my feeders today!  Three were house finches and two were goldfinches.

A close up of the goldfinches.

[feathersau]

[Peregrine Falcon]

WC: 1358 TW/CW: canon typical mentions of violence/childhood trauma, blood, Jason Gideon’s death, grieving. Lowkey unhinged time for Garza. A/N: I did bend some canon things to make it more condusive to my own fanfic, but the gist is still the same as Nelson’s Sparrow. Only the cabin belonged to Jess’s serial killer mother, and she has a complicated relationship with the building. Summary: grief is stupid, and Jess Garza will be the first to admit it. Based during Nelson’s Sparrow, Garza figures out how the hell she’s supposed to grieve when the man she knew isn’t the one everyone’s talking about. (Hotch and Jess are in a relationship at this point, it’s mentioned but not explicitly).

Masterlist (overall) | season 10 masterlist 

  *~*~*

The reality of Jason Gideon’s death came as a hushed whisper through the trees. Jess Garza was several steps away from the cabin, where she’d once been found by the older man, terrified. And if anyone knew that, which Rossi did, it could be thought that the guttural scream that tore itself from her body would be in some sort of relation to the thousands of memories of her mother in this exact spot.

It wasn’t.

Jason Gideon was a stubborn old man with a stubborn lifestyle and his absence in her life had impacted far more than he’d ever know. His murder, however, seemed worse. It was a reminder that she had taken the wrong job, made the wrong decision, and that now those choices were going to follow her everywhere she went. Even if she retired, some unsolved case was going to find her in the dead of night and slit her throat, leaving a body for Mia to find and more questions than answers.

She stalked back to the cabin, which was full of laughter and memories of the older man, and a fleeting thought in her mind wanted her to join them and tell her own happy memories of him. She wanted to tell them of the time they went bird watching and ate ham and mustard sandwiches, only for them to realise that mustard was the worst condiment known to man. But her anger was far more powerful, and instead she wrenched the axe from the log and drove it once, twice, three times into the wall of the cabin. 

It didn’t take much for the panelling to come free, it took far much more for anyone to come looking. The old hiding spot exposed, Jess reached her arm through cobwebs and into the darkness that was now occupied by all matter of creatures and pulled out a small trinket box that had been abandoned years before. She shook the cobwebs from it and shoved it deep into her pocket, driving the axe into the panels once more.

This is what Jason Gideon was killed for. The hole was big enough for a small child to climb through, just enough for a deep reach up to Jess’s shoulder. Her fingers found it, the old material that was frayed and decaying against her fingertips, and pulled. She pulled, and pulled, and pulled, like it was a magic trick, as if the fabric would never stop, and she kept pulling even when Rossi was screaming at her to stop. Years and years and years of proof, of what her mother was capable of and what she’d helped her with. Proof of every person killed, trinkets and DNA and blood stains, enough to  put her away for life with her mother.

But Rossi wasn’t screaming. The axe hadn’t even met the wall, she had gripped the old thing so tight that the wooden handle had splintered against her palm, blood running down it to the head. But the laughing had stopped. The cabin had turned to a sombre affair, everyone desperate to take a trinket of Gideon and no one willing to take the first item. She pressed her hand to the cabinwall, then her forehead.

The cabin had a heartbeat. Not literally, but she could feel it. She could feel the logs breathe beneath her hand, she could feel the memories. The happy ones, the sad ones, the horrors. She could feel every scream, every cry, every time she’d begged for the pain to stop, and counter intuitively–every time she’d ever laughed. She wanted to pry each wooden slate from the wall and throw them on the ground and burn the place to the ground, from her childhood hiding spot first. 

But she doesn’t. She drives the axe deep into the ground and pulls the splinters from her palm until the pain overshadows the blood and goes back into the cabin. She walks right between JJ and Penelope, sitting on the floor sharing a pint of ice cream, and pulls the first aid kit from where it’s always stood. They’re both too deep in conversation to notice as she cleans her hand with rubbing alcohol and wraps her hand and fights the urge to punch the wall as if the wood would dissolve under her touch. 

She’s grateful that no one asks her to join their conversation. She’s grateful that she just gets to walk off the cabin’s steps and no one launches after her. She’s not grateful for the haze that follows her, as grief always did. 

It drags her down newly tarmacked roads to a dirt one, to where time and erosion has torn away the road into a large drop. But she knows where she's going, the trees are the same. The birds flitter along her path, remembering her from her childhood. The crows greet her with caws and fly low over her, protecting her from the memories the trees wish to give her. 

She walked past the bird watching hut and kept going, to where the river rushed and forced its way over the banks. The birds stayed back, leaving this moment for her as she knelt in the wet river silt and placed her uninjured hand on the surface of the cold water.

"You were a stupid old man, Jason Gideon." She told the river, and it splashed her in agreement. "But don't stick around, okay? You've done enough in life. Don't start hunting people as a spirit, please." She paused, realising the tears now trickling down her cheeks as the words he had told her years ago sat on the tip of her tongue only now it wasn't a deal to stay alive. She leaned over the river. She watched her warped face ripple and the little river creatures swim over the silt and rocks and the fish that swam close then got scared.

"I'm too cynical to become a psychic, so stay dead, okay, Dad?" The words caught in her throat as the tears landed in the river and were carried far away from her. "Also, fuck you for dying. You're going to miss Nick's birthday and Stephen's wedding and you promised Mia a bird present for her sixteenth. And I really wanted to introduce you to the one person you already know but never in relation to me." She smacked the surface of the river, and bent so close that her breath distorted the surface. "I wanted to watch you squirm trying to figure out how to threaten your protege."

She sits in the bird watching hut until it's dark and cold and the tartan throw does very little to keep the cold out of her lungs. But even then, she stays, until the crunch of footsteps brings her to the present, and the door opens and Rossi puts a jacket around her shoulders.

He doesn't talk to her. But his arm around her comforted her more than he'll ever know. More than she'll ever confess. 

They don’t say it, but they know it. 

This was how Jason would have wanted to go. He wouldn’t have been happy with retiring, living somewhere where nothing happened but the birds and the river and his own thoughts. He wouldn’t have been happy collecting rare bird art and making lithographs and meeting up with old university friends. 

He would have never been happy living the life he dreamt about when he left the BAU.

“Hey,” Rossi said gently as they reached the road where he’d parked the black SVU. He took the taller woman’s face in his hands and squeezed her cheeks until her face distorted into something comical and she forgot the tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes. “When you choose to leave, this job isn’t going to follow you.”

“You don’t know that.” 

“I know you’d never do it to Mia.” He kissed both her cheeks then pressed a tiepininto the lapels of her coat. The peregrine falcon spread its wings mid flight, ready to take her anywhere she wanted.

“He kept it,” she said quietly, her voice barely a whisper. Rossi nodded and opened the car door.

“Let’s go home.”

[marianas-art-world]

Criminal Minds | Jason Gideon

@werewolfbarbie @oswinthestrange @kittyinhighheels @metallihca

[brian-in-finance]

Photograph by Jason Bell. Styled by Jessica Diehl.

When Benedict Cumberbatch was 19 years old, he got good and lost in the Himalayas. No longer a schoolboy in tailcoat and boater, not yet the internationally known star of Sherlock and one of the world’s most unlikely sex symbols, he had taken a gap year before university to get a glimpse of life beyond A-level exams and Sunday chapel.

In a hillside town near Darjeeling, he taught English to Tibetan monks, giving himself a crash course in improvisation as he conjured up instructional games. On weekends off, he would seek adventure: white-water rafting down the Kali Gandaki River, traversing the desert province of Rajasthan. (It was monsoon season everywhere else.) But the mountains beckoned.

So he and three friends caught a bus from Kathmandu. Sherpas were expensive, and they were students traveling on the cheap, so they decided, extremely unwisely, to wing it. Altitude sickness derailed them one by one: their group of four became a group of three, then a group of two. By the third night, Cumberbatch recalls, “I started to have really weird, fucked-up dreams, and felt things were happening in my sleep. I wasn’t sure if I was conscious or awake.”

He and his friend reached a spiritual fork in the road, which happened to be a literal fork in the road: up or down? They chose up. And that’s when they got utterly, hopelessly, bewilderingly lost. They ran out of biscuits. They drank rainwater squeezed out of moss, because they’d read it was safer than river water. As night fell, with their flashlights losing power, they pressed on through the thicket, until they spotted a corrugated-steel roof in the distance: salvation?

Turns out it was an abandoned barn. They threw themselves belly-down on straw and drifted to sleep. That night, they had even more fucked-up dreams, each of them convinced that someone—or something—was rifling through their bags. But when they woke up, there was no one.

The next morning, they followed the river, hoping it would lead to civilization. They nearly broke their necks slipping down moss-covered boulders. The alpine fog gave way to forest, and leeches stuck to their ankles. They found a path with fresh yak droppings: a good sign. Finally, the trees thinned, and they came to a clearing of terraced pastures and log cabins that looked like something out of The Sound of Music. Running toward the inhabitants, they mimed the international sign for hunger (fingers to open mouths) and were served the best-tasting meal they’d ever had—unwashed greens and a bowl of eggs—after which Cumberbatch immediately got dysentery.

“Ah,” the actor sighs 21 years later, “you take the highs with the lows.”

Cumberbatch is recounting this tale in the lobby of Shutters on the Beach, a five-star hotel in Santa Monica. He’s been staying here all week, doing pickups—minor shots after principal photography is done—for Doctor Strange, the reportedly $165 million fantasy film, in which he plays one of Marvel’s more mind-bending superheroes. He tosses his sunglasses and trilby on the table, then reclines on a canvas-wrapped chair in an off-white T-shirt and trousers, gazing blearily at the bicyclists and roller skaters out on the boardwalk. It’s 11 A.M., and he’s working on no sleep.

Seriously, none. He was out shooting an exterior nighttime sequence until 7:30 in the morning, acting opposite co-stars who weren’t actually there, punctuated by long stretches in the makeup chair during which he struggled to stay awake. “It’s probably, hours-wise, the craziest day’s work, if you can call it a day, I’ve ever, ever done,” he says over an iced coffee. A tiny sparrow has flown into the hotel lobby and is darting around underfoot, its discombobulation mirroring the 40-year-old actor’s. He offers a very English disclaimer: “Fluidity, accuracy, intelligence, humor—all these things might be very odd today. I don’t really know who I am.”

The Cover Shoot: Benedict Cumberbatch Bends Minds

Photograph by Jason Bell. Styled by Jessica Diehl.

The actor rolls up his sleeve.

Photograph by Jason Bell. Styled by Jessica Diehl.

DARK SIDE

A contemplative Cumberbatch, photographed in Long Island City.

And yet he proceeds to talk in a “Flight of the Bumblebee” sprint, like Sherlock Holmes briskly deconstructing a crime scene. (“Why, it’s obvious.”) On-screen, Cumberbatch’s motormouthed precision and dagger-sharp blue eyes can read as otherworldly, as if he were a slightly more advanced human life-form than the rest of us. If he’s been pigeonholed, it’s for playing socially challenged geniuses, people who compute more than relate: the World War II code breaker Alan Turing (in The Imitation Game, for which he was nominated for an Oscar in 2015), the WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange (The Fifth Estate), and, of course, Sherlock, whom he’s played since 2010 in the wildly popular BBC series.

Of Memes and Ben

Being Benedict Cumberbatch means living under a magnifying glass, like a fingerprint under Sherlock’s gaze. Nearly everything he does is captured, catalogued, and obsessed over by an ever widening rabble of fans. Some call themselves Cumberbitches. Or, slightly more P.C. (but not much), Cumberbabes. Perhaps it’s his accentuated Britishness—that Dickensian name, that Brontëan pallor—that renders him a kind of imaginary dress-up doll, a thinking woman’s fetish object. If Laurence Olivier had lived in the age of Tumblr, he might have been the “Internet’s boyfriend,” too.

A good chunk of the Web is now devoted to Cumbergazing, or Cumberfantasizing, or straight-up Cumberstalking. The @Cumberbitches Twitter account, dedicated to “the appreciation of the high cheekboned, blue eyed sexbomb that is Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch,” has 256,000 followers. There’s a bustling Cumberbitch group on Reddit, which celebrates “ThrowBatch Thursdays.” Biography.com outlined the “8 Essential Qualities of a Cumberbitch,” which include holding “an unofficial bachelor’s degree in Cumber-ology.” In 2014, The London Review of Books published a poem in which the author imagines meeting Cumberbatch at a party. He’s huge in China, where fans refer to Holmes and Watson as Curly Fu and Peanut. A baker in Indonesia makes “cumbercupcakes,” complete with edible figurines.

CUMBERBATCH’S OWN CURIOUS APPEAL IS PART MR. DARCY, PART CYBORG. AND YET HE ISN’T A DRAG.

The Cumberfrenzy can be traced to July 25, 2010, when the first episode of Sherlock aired in the U.K., watched by 7.5 million viewers. Twitter went berserk. Something about Sherlock’s sexlessness—his nearly sociopathic focus on solving crimes, to the exclusion of normal human relations—made him that much more irresistible, as if just the right woman could turn him toward carnality. Or the right man: the series is laden with innuendo about Sherlock and John Watson, played by a cutely befuddled Martin Freeman. Forums of erotic “Johnlock” fan fiction have filled in the blanks. (From a story called “First Times”: “All it took was a glance, and it was like the dam finally broke. They couldn’t hold back anymore. John had stopped, mid-breath, and then his lips were on Sherlock’s.”)

Cumberbatch greets the fan deluge—some of it creative, some of it creepy—with a practiced amusement. On my way to meet him in Santa Monica, I check online for the latest haul. A Twitter user has posted: “Sometimes when I’m sad I picture a shirtless Benedict Cumberbatch slowly eating an apple fritter. Try it!”

When I read this to Cumberbatch, he blushes on cue and says, “Have you tried that? It wouldn’t work for me.” He laughs, a little uneasily. “I’m glad I’m bringing a ray of sunshine to an otherwise dull day, being imagined eating fritters shirtless. But, I don’t know, it makes me giggle. I don’t look at myself in the mirror and go, ‘Yeah, absolutely! I see what they’re saying!’ I see all my faults and everything that I’ve always seen as my faults.”

Photograph by Jason Bell. Styled by Jessica Diehl.

HERO IN RECLINE

Benedict Cumberbatch, photographed in the Metropolitan Building in Long Island City, New York.

Strange Days

Of course, not all the attention is so benevolent. Obsession breeds possessiveness, which can breed something darker. Last year, Cumberbatch married the stage director Sophie Hunter, and they had a son, Christopher (nicknamed Kit). “There are people who believe that my wife is a P.R. stunt and my child is a P.R. stunt,” he says, unsure if he should even be bringing this up—he knows that there’s no arguing with conspiracy theorists. “I think really it’s to do with the idea that the ‘Internet’s boyfriend’ can’t actually belong to anyone else but the Internet. It’s impossible he belongs to anyone but me. And that’s what stalking is. That’s what obsessive, deluded, really scary behavior is.”

Doctor Strange will surely add to the hysteria. The film, which opens November 4, will do little to dispel Cumberbatch’s reputation as the go-to guy for super-brains. (As he’s quick to point out, he also enjoys playing “out-and-out dummies,” like the love-struck loser Little Charles in August: Osage County.) Created in 1963, by the same Marvel team that concocted Spider-Man, Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange is a world-famous neurosurgeon whose healing hands are ruined in a car accident. Desperate to regain his skills and the material luxuries they afford, he travels to the exotic city of Kamar-Taj, where he meets a guru known as the Ancient One, played by Tilda Swinton. Trained in the mystic arts, he is reborn, in Cumberbatch’s description, as “the primary sorcerer on earth and the defender of our realm against other-dimensional threats.”

So much for out-and-out dummies.

If his brainiac roles have defined him, he insists that’s just because those are “the characters that pop. They’re the characters that people are in awe of, because they’re a little bit beyond us.” He might as well be describing his own curious appeal: part Mr. Darcy, part cyborg. And yet he isn’t a drag. “Benedict is an extremely nice person to work with,” Swinton says. “Engaged, quick-witted, enthusiastic, kind and relaxed, up for a giggle and properly companionable on long days, self-sufficient, concentrated, yet chock-full of fun.” (Swinton’s casting has drawn accusations of whitewashing, since the character in the comics is an Asian man.)

Cumberbatch is no comic-book geek, though he has trod in fantastical realms before, as the genetically bred Khan (another superhuman!) in Star Trek into Darkness. When some journalists at a Star Trek event told him a few years ago that he’d make a perfect Doctor Strange, he replied, “Doctor What?” He was “lukewarm” about the material at first, thinking the comic too dated: 60s occultism meets Cold War science fiction meets Orientalist pulp. But it put him in the mind of his sojourning teenage self, reading The Tao of Physics and searching for “the godhead within.”

A GOOD CHUNK OF THE WEB IS NOW DEVOTED TO CUMBERGAZING, OR CUMBERFANTASIZING.

And so, last fall, Cumberbatch caught a plane to Kathmandu, two days after finishing his panic-causing run as Hamlet at London’s Barbican Centre. (Advance tickets sold out within hours, leaving salivating fans to line up down the street.) It was six months after the Nepalese earthquake that had killed more than 8,000 people, and his first time there since his misbegotten trek in the Himalayas. This time, he was the antithesis of a man lost in the wilderness, searching for signs of humanity—humanity would now find him whether he liked it or not.

The first few days, he and the cameras passed through the city unnoticed, thanks to Strange’s “desperate caveman” look: scraggly beard, shambolic clothes. “We did a lot of guerrilla stuff, just walking through markets,” Cumberbatch recalls. The day he arrived, he saw a riverside cremation. Shooting atop the Monkey Temple, he watched “30 Tibetan women wandering around the central stupa with the all-sensitive eye in the middle, dragging their hands on prayer wheels, muttering their puja, their prayers.” It was enchanted, peaceful. But then word got out, and the crew was ambushed by locals with cameras yelling, “Benedict! Benedict!”—or, more often, “Sherlock! Sherlock!”

“There were throngs of people,” recalls Chiwetel Ejiofor, his co-star in Doctor Strange and 12 Years a Slave. “I didn’t know that Sherlock was big in Kathmandu, but apparently I was wrong.” At one point—preserved on YouTube—Cumberbatch stuck his bearded face out of a window overlooking Lalitpur’s Patan Durbar Square and waved to the crowds; shouts of “Say cheese!” are underscored by a distinctly female group wail. Time ran the headline TURNS OUT BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH CAN’T GO ANYWHERE.

Actors’ Actor

Nothing from his upbringing suggested that his chosen craft would inspire this level of fanaticism. He grew up in Kensington, the only child of Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, both working actors who made careers in commercial theater and British sitcoms. (Timothy Carlton dropped the “Cumberbatch” from his stage name, thinking it too fussy. His son, after starting his career as Benedict Carlton, did the opposite, on advice from an agent.) Ventham, who has a daughter from a previous marriage, was a fixture on the science-fiction series UFO and the BBC comedy Only Fools and Horses. She was a stunner. “Whenever they wanted a glamour girl or someone rather beautiful, they wheeled in Wanda,” says her longtime acquaintance Una Stubbs, who now plays Sherlock’s doddering landlady, Mrs. Hudson; Stubbs recalls running into Ventham on the street and gossiping as four-year-old Benedict tugged at his mother’s dress.

Through his parents, he observed the profession’s ups and downs: “I saw the fallow periods as much as I saw when they were ticking along nicely and getting work.” Dragged to see his mother in yet another chintzy Feydeau farce, he would sniff, “If I see another one of those, I’m going to have to disown you.” Nevertheless, his parents worked doubly hard to send him to Harrow, the elite boarding school. (His paternal grandmother helped with tuition.) Harrow was “obscenely pampering and privileged,” he says—alumni include Cecil Beaton and Winston Churchill—and as the son of actors he didn’t always fit in among the peers and princes. But his first two years there he landed two big Shakespearean roles, both female. “The first time I stepped onstage in front of an all-male public-school crowd was dressed up as queen of the fairies, Titania, with a Cleo Laine wig and a pineapple crown.”

Playing Rugby and cricket insulated him from taunts. But in his final years he dropped sports to focus on acting and painting; his classmates, he says, “presumed that because I was into art I was definitely gay.” After his mind-opening pilgrimage east, he returned to study drama at the University of Manchester and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He worked at a steady clip, playing Stephen Hawking in a TV biopic and earning an Olivier nomination as Tesman in a West End production of Hedda Gabler. But he envisioned something bigger than his parents’ journeyman careers: “I wanted to do things that they didn’t get the chance to.”

Now that Sherlock has made that possible, he may not be long for the role. Having filmed Season Four, which premieres in January, he does not expect to return to the character “for the immediate future.” Sherlock made him a meme; The Imitation Game made him an A-lister; Doctor Strange may yet make him a mega-star.

Photograph by Jason Bell. Styled by Jessica Diehl.

WALKING THE LINE

Cumberbatch, beneath elevated subway tracks in Long Island City.

Role with It

Because he resembles a sun-deprived habitué of the London Library, you wouldn’t peg Cumberbatch as a daredevil, but he has always gravitated toward the edge: motorbiking, skydiving. “He’s definitely a bit of an adrenaline junkie,” says his best friend, Adam Ackland, whom he met while working on the 2008 BBC drama The Last Enemy. (Their production company, SunnyMarch, is developing several Cumberbatch vehicles, including an adaptation of the 1939 suspense novel Rogue Male.) Acting, for Cumberbatch, is another form of thrill-seeking, a way to scale Himalayan summits of the psyche. Hamlet was a kind of Everest, one he seems to have conquered. As the Telegraph critic wrote, “Cumberbatch admirers can take heart, his female devotees are entitled to swoon: in this trial of his acting strength, he emerges, unquestionably, victorious.”

To understand his taste for the extreme, you have to go back to 2004, to a near-death experience even more harrowing than his misadventure in the Himalayas. He was in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, filming the BBC mini-series To the Ends of the Earth, and went scuba-diving in Sodwana Bay with two of his co-stars, Theo Landey and Denise Black. As they were returning at night, along a stretch of highway notorious for carjackings, they pulled over with a flat tire. Six armed men jumped them and took their cell phones and credit cards, then forced them back into the car at gunpoint and drove. At one point, Cumberbatch was stuffed in the trunk. “Ben kicked and screamed blue-bloody murder,” Landey recalls.

The robbers stopped under a bridge, where the actors were tied up with their own shoelaces, crouching execution-style. Convinced these were his last moments, Cumberbatch pleaded for his life. After several minutes of silence, he realized the men had left. The actors managed to untie themselves and wandered along the highway until they stumbled across some local women who lent them their phones to call for help.

Rather than retreating into himself, as some might after a trauma, Cumberbatch says the ordeal only intensified his lust for adventure. “I was definitely more impatient to live a life less ordinary,” he says. “I wanted to swim in the sea that I saw the next morning. If you feel you’re going to die, you don’t think you’re going to have all those sensations again—a cold beer, a cigarette, the feel of sun on your skin. All those hit you as firsts again. It is, in a way, a new beginning. But we were on our way back from the first weekend of a scuba-diving training course, so it wasn’t as if I was insular before that. I think it just made me run at it a bit more recklessly.”

The past two years have tempered, or perhaps transmuted, his need for adrenaline. When I ask where he wants to find his next thrill, he says, “It’s a sappy answer, but the truth is I want to seek some thrills at home.” He met Hunter almost two decades ago, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, but it took them years to get together. After a courtship that they miraculously managed to keep out of the tabloids, they married Valentine’s Day 2015 on the Isle of Wight. Hunter was pregnant with Kit, who was born that June, two weeks before Cumberbatch began rehearsals for Hamlet. He has since given up motorbiking, to say nothing of jumping out of airplanes.

“Having a baby—it’s massive,” he says. “And on a very unexpected level. Suddenly I understood my parents much more profoundly than I ever had before.” Fatherhood gave him counter-intuitive insight into the most challenging role in the theatrical canon. “I was expecting, with Hamlet, that it might be a hindrance to be a father, because it’s all about being a son. But it’s the opposite. You understand much more about being a son, becoming a father.”

Swinton says, “My fondest impression of him is as a new husband besotted by his girl, and a new father enchanted by his boy.” She doesn’t worry that fame will spoil him: “I think he knows that he wants—and has—a life first and foremost, that his life suits and nourishes him and that it makes the world go round.”

Speaking of which, Cumberbatch has to catch a plane—back to London for a few days, before a much-needed Italian holiday with Sophie and Kit. The sparrow is still flitting around the hotel lobby, suddenly alighting on the chair behind me. “Jesus Christ!,” I yell, embarrassingly startled. But Cumberbatch, unruffled, hops up from his chair, walks over to the terrace door, and props it open with a rubber wedge.

“That might give the bird a chance,” he says, backlit by sunlight.

It seems like a metaphor for something, but Cumberbatch is no trapped bird in need of rescue. Instead, it occurs to me, I’ve just witnessed a would-be meme, a Cumberbitch fantasy in the making.

Sometimes when I’m sad I picture a sleepless Benedict Cumberbatch freeing a tiny sparrow. Try it!

Remember when Benedict Cumberbatch’s career tanked after he called some fan behaviour obsessive, deluded, and really scary? He only won a BAFTA and received a nomination for another, plus nominations for three Prime Time Emmys, a SAG Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. And now, so far in 2022, only 15 Best Actor nominations for Power of The Dog. It’s a shame.

15 as of midnight GMT, 7 January 2022

I own my passive-aggression.

[a-safe-and-quiet-place]

Stymphalian Bird

Stymphalian Bird

Pausanias theorized that the Stymphalian birds originated in Arabia, citing the presence of fierce desert birds known as the Stymphalides. He then admits that the population found at Stymphalos, in Arcadia, may have been the result of a few wayward birds making their way into Greece. Following this line of reasoning, Pausanias deduces that they earned the name of Stymphalides due to their fame in Greece, and the name then supplanted whatever name they originally had in Arabia!

Variations: Stymphalide, Bird of Ares

The appearance of the Stymphalian birds is no less muddled. Their most feared weapon is the sharpened, pointed tips of their wing feathers, which they fling like darts to stab their prey. Sometimes their feathers and beaks are made of bronze or iron, the better for piercing armor. Pausanias described them as about crane-sized, but resembling the ibis in shape, but with a stronger bill; elsewhere he says they are like hawks or eagles. In Greek art they have been represented as ibises, swans, and other such waterfowl; at least one obol from Stymphalos shows a bird with a short crest and a stout, powerful bill. Finally, no doubt influenced by tales of harpies and sirens, the temple of Stymphalian Diana also has stone statues of virgins with birds’ feet.

It remains true that the Stymphalian birds were first and foremost associated with Lake Stymphalia. They terrorized the region, ravaging crops, killing people, and poisoning the ground with their dung. Fox suggests that the legend originated as a glamorization of a plague or pestilence rising from the marshes, which would explain their noxious qualities. While their feathered darts could pierce armor, they were powerless against a certain type of tree bark, which held them fast like quicklime. There was only so much bark to go around, though, and the birds seemed numberless.

It was this scourge that Heracles was sent to destroy. As his sixth labor, it was one of a list of impossible tasks, and indeed the vast numbers of birds seemed beyond the hero’s strength. Heracles got around this by exploiting a simple fact – despite their numbers and ferocity, Stymphalian birds were as easily spooked as sparrows. Fashioning a pair of bronze castanets, he made such a din that the flock took off in a panic; from there he shot a great number down with his arrows, while the remainder of the birds flew off and were never seen in Arcadia again.

That was not the end of the Stymphalian birds, as from Greece they made their way to the Black Sea and populated the Island of Ares, where they became sacred guardians to the god of war. It was this flock that Jason and his Argonauts encountered on their way to Colchis. While the birds of Ares managed to wound the Argonaut Oileus with a feather projectile, they were scared off once more by the noise of rattling bronze armor, but not before pelting the Argonauts with a hailstorm of feathers.

References

- Aldington, R. and Ames, D. trans.; Guirand, F. (1972) New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology. Paul Hamlyn, London.

- Ames, D. trans.; Guirand, F. (1963) Greek Mythology. From Mythologie Generale Larousse. Paul Hamlyn, London.

- Apollonius, Coleridge, E.P. trans. (1889) The Argonautica. George Bell and Sons, London.

- Fox, W. M. (1964) The Mythology of All Races v. I: Greek and Roman. Cooper Square Publishers, New York.

- Pausanias, Levi, P. trans. (1979) Guide to Greece, volume 2: Southern Greece. Penguin Books, London.

Original Traditional Art before it gets My Surreal/Psychadelic Touch - A Book Of Creatures

PS: Btw it really sucks that tumblr doesn’t let people upload gifs with less than 10mb, makes us optimize our gifs and even then it optimizes them even further in theyr servers to 3mb i believe

[myshiptrashcan]

Such a shame wings cover the back, Jason had a nice ass and everything. But his wings are pretty. They're big enough to fly but not overly large like some bird of prey wings other people have. My rule is that the total wing span has got to be at least twice as long as the body. I'm pretty sure if he stretched them out it would make it.

Some first draft duologue for my new HOA bird person story.

"I know it may sound childish, but I used to think all Americans had Eagle wings. That was before the war. But I thought if anyone would have them it would be you, Jarhead." And Jason let out a loud laugh.  "Was it the tattoos?" "I think it was your accent." "I used to get made fun of a lot as a kid for my wings. My Pa wanted a big tough boy, he had massive Vulture wings, but when my plumage showed he was disappointed I got my Mother's wings. I was her little sparrow, a Mama's boy through and true. But damn, I wanted to be the son my father always wanted. So I tried to be tough, pretended I was a big scary vulture. But I would get beat up and bullied and I would cry. I would hangout with my sister and play games with her most of the time. My sister loved it, my father didn't. Never did get my father's approval, that was until I joined up in the military." Jason reminisced.  "I wasn't proud of myself then, and I'm sure now he'd curse me out for who I've become." He added. "And how do you feel about yourself now?"  "I don't know, since meeting you my whole world has been turned upside down….. Right now I'm feeling pretty good."  "I like who you are today. You are a good man, Jason."  "Maybe someday I'll believe it."

I still need to draw a nice version of him though. Also fuck this guy's backpack.

[liquid-luck-00]

Gifts

Bio!Dad Bruce

Day 13: Gifts

@biodad-bruce-month

Ao3 ~~~ First ~~~ Previous ~~~ Next

~~~~~~~~~~

Christmas seemed to arrive much sooner than anyone had thought possible. Marinette had only been part of their family for two months but anyone could tell that something had changed in the Manor.

Christmas eve was spent baking. Well Marinette and Alfred baked. Everyone else was only allowed to watch and then help with the frosting. The Kents had come over for dinner and afterwards Barbara and Commissioner Gordon arrived. Followed by Stephanie, Cass, and Duke.

A game tournament was held until 11pm, where there was a lot of UMS III, several board games, and two extremely competitive games of Clue. Dick had organized a secret Santa and gifts were exchanged at midnight, only after every one got snacks, their gifts, and any other last second thing came up. Bruce gave the first gift at the stroke of twelve to Lois.

Bruce gave Lois a new recorder, notebook, and per set. Lois gave the peacock pin to Alfred, at Marinette's suggestion and offer. Alfred gave Cass a book set with taped recordings. Cass gifted Jason with a replica of Jack Sparrow's pistol. Jason gave Barbara a charm bracelet with a bat, crystal ball, and a police badge. Barbara gave Damian a faux leather jacket and a pair of throwing blades. Damian gave Stephanie a box of chocolates and a new traveling bag. Stephanie gave Tim a new insulated mug and the strongest coffee she could find. Tim gifted Clark a new communicator/watch, he tends to break them a lot. Clark decided to give Gordon a classic analog watch. Gordon presented Dick with the poster of the Flying Grayson's when they were last in Gotham. Dick, thanks to Mari, gave Duke a custom yellow motto jacket designed after the Bride's in Kill Bill. Duke, curtesy of Tim, gave Jon a watch communicator similar to his dad's. Jon gave Marinette a sketchbook with a note from him as well as a sketch from Damian. Finally Mari gifted her father with a hand embroidered tie, little bats that only showed when the light hit it just right, and black bat cuffs to match.

After the exchange everyone either watched Christmas movies, played more games, or in Mari and Jason's case slipped away to fight an akuma in Paris. Luckily it was an easy fight that was less than 5 minutes.

By 2am Commissioner Gordon and Barbara left followed by the Kents. Duke, Stephanie, and Cass left not long afterwards, saying something about meeting the Titians or was it the YJ for a mission.

"Your seriously not going to try this again are you baby bird?" Dick asked Damian from next to Mari.

"Santa Claus will be caught, I will make sure of it" he said resolutely.

"You couldn't do it last year, you won't be able to this year" Tim replied sipping his cocoa, since 10 pm Mari had been swapping his cups so he finally gave up after the 25th cup.

"Replacement's right" Jason seconded.

"Qamri your with me right?"

"If you want me to help rig a trap I will" she began "but you won't catch him" she finished with a smirk.

"Wait what does that mean?" Dick turned towards her, well everyone had.

"Santa Clause is a powerful and old spirit or Meta if you prefer" Mari answered.

"How do you know this? If it is even true that is"

Damian questioned.

"Tikki" she shrugged "Anyways if he can get on Apokalips and get past Darkseid, give him a chunk of coal, without being caught. I don't know if you will do any better."

The four watched Christmas movies and fell asleep on the couch.

---

Bruce had woken up and it was a silent Christmas morning and that was odd. Usually Damian would have been in a rage for either not staying up or complaining that he didn't catch St. Nick. So naturally he went to see if he was still asleep. What he found was an empty bed. He checked Jason's room empty, but that wasn't that odd. Marinette's room was also empty, but he didn't smell any sweets and that was odd. Dick wasn't in his room either but he would probably be itching to open gifts.

So he went down to the living room and that was where he found all his children asleep on a pile of pillows and blankets.

"Why don't we break tradition and have breakfast while opening gifts?" he spoke to Alfred who had appeared beside him.

"As you wish Sir"

"I'll help" he followed Alfred and carried a tray of pancakes, waffles, and toast, while Alfred brought cocoa, tea, fruits, and syrup. As they walked in

his four children began to wake up.

"Is that hot cocoa?"

"Yes it is Miss Mari"

“No big strategy to catch St. Nick this year Damian?”

“There were but an unforeseen variable came into play”

“And what was it”

“Tikki and her seemingly vast knowledge of the man in question” He was confused and he was about to voice that confusion when he was jarred from his thoughts.

Dick who already seemed completely awake already. "Who gets to give the first set of gifts?" At that Marinette, Tim, Damian, and Jason seemed to wake up.

Before anyone could argue Bruce spoke up "Mini it's your first Christmas with us would you like to be first?"

---

"Sure" She moved to the tree and pulled six gifts.

Jason was the first to get his. It was a new brown leather jacket with a hood, lined with a deep red. Tim was next, she gave him a custom work bag that was reminiscent of Red Robin with the Gotham skyline. Damian was given a watch with a hidden Robin 'R' on it. Dick got a letterman jacket with patches from where he preformed with his parents, while the front patch was his Nightwing insignia. Alfred she gave a complete recipe book from her parent's bakery. Finally she gave her father a sketch of Batman and his partners, a framed photo of the two of them in Paris, she took it while he was distracted covered in flour, and she wrote him a letter on the back of the photo.

Afterwards everyone else gave their gifts. She got a katana from Damian. A black leather jacket with blush pink lining and piping from Jason. A new drawing tablet and pen from Tim. Dick had given her a necklace and bracelet set to complement her miraculous. Alfred gave her a mini bat backpack. Her father gave her a strand of pearls all were white but the central pearl, which was golden.

Everyone was enjoying, and for one not arguing or fighting, the morning. All She could think was that her father, grandfather. and brothers are the best gift she could have received.

Bonus:

"Qamri, really a watch how come even the replacement got a better thought of gift?" Damian pouted.

"Not everything is what it seems" she giggled. she put the watch on his wrist and turned the crown four times. He was engulfed in shadows and then he stood there in his Robin uniform.

"How?"

"A modified miraculous binding, Tikki helped me with it. But long story short no time limit and when you need to change your uniform, upgrade or fix, just scan it."

"So it's not magical?"

"Nope more like translocation"

Next

~~~~~~~~~~

Taglist:

@mochinek0 @justafanwarrior @abrx2002 @ranger-gothamite @fantasiame @moonystars14 @mochegato @bigbeautifulandfullofsugar @maribat-is-lifeblood @iglowinggemma28 @miraculous-ninja @talutah0 @vixen-uchiha @danielslilangel @witchsblackfox @pawsitivelymiraculous @lizziejay @marinettepotterandplagg @colorfulmongerpsychicranch @dast218 @sassakitty @miyla-lokidottir @lilkymilky @tazanna-blythe @tired-butterfly @lozzybowe @smolplantmum @queencommonsense @loopingtangent @chez-pezeater @paintedhope7 @technicallyburninggarden @meme991001 @wannajointhecrabcult @melicmusicmagic @trippingovermyfeet @greatcatblaze @fidget-eep @miraculouslydumb @iamablinkmarvelarmy @laurcad123 @hauntedwintersweets @fc-studios @fusser90 @madking-warqueen @buginetye @little-lady-bird @thebooki3h @iamabrownfox

[deithe]

the bones (2,847 words) (1/1)

(an introspective on jason grace. kind of?)

read here on ao3 or read below the cut!

jason falls in love with the human equivalent of a forest fire

(his mother fell in love with the sky itself)

jason grace grew up being told that his destiny was very, very simple.

his first and most important mission, handed down to him from lady juno and mother lupa, was that jason was destined to save rome. that his destiny lay with new rome and camp jupiter, a new romulus to lead the pack to greatness. he would spill so much blood in new rome’s name that the little tiber would overflow and the gods would crown him with a golden laurel made from monster ichor.

he would be everything everyone else needed.

a spear for the senate, a shield for new rome, a standard to replace the one that had been lost, a sword for the gods to wield, and another pack member for lupa. he would be the perfect soldier, a demigod fashioned by two god-mothers for the simple act of being a weapon.

his second duty was that jason was to be nothing like his father.

his father, evil, unpredictable, selfish and cruel, was to be jason’s antithesis. lady juno stressed this, as did the senate, as did his praetors (though praetor saville jason eventually killed in battle, so jason doesn’t take her words to heart anymore). jason was never, ever to be like his father. all sons of jupiter before him were either driven insane or were killed, and jason’s great destiny could not afford for him to do either of those things.

‘hubris’ lady juno once told him, while going through his latin lessons in the damp cold of the den (or wolf house, as she called it), ‘is the thing that kills sons of jupiter’.

so jason was to never be prideful, but at the same time, never to believe he was inferior. he was to be subservient but never meek, he was to be a capable fighter but never violent. he was to be kind but not a pushover. open but not flirtatious.

he was to be perfect. he could not afford anything else.

then he, in the span of a few months, murdered his prateor after finding out she was a traitor, watched his friend be assaulted by a family legacy of prophetic visions which turned him into a paranoid asshole, watched his other friend assume a leadership role, one which he tried to refuse, and fought an army, killed a titan and toppled kronos’ black throne.

he also became praetor and then was promptly kidnapped by lady juno, leaving said other friend with all the responsibility.

then any and all plans the gods had for him were ruined by a daughter of aphrodite with eyes like the earth and a son of hephaestus with a smile like war.

how could jason be the perfect soldier when his loyalties no longer lay with new rome? he loved his home, he loved his siblings-in-arms, he loved the legion-

he loved leo and piper more than the breath in his lungs, than the sky and earth and more than his destiny. he loved them enough to try and find whatever scraps of himself he had. to create something they could love too.

(heracles killed himself after accidentally killing his family. love killed him in the end)

and so, jason failed in his first mission. he could no longer put new rome above them, above camp half-blood.

jason doesn’t think becoming his father is an option for him, however. his father is prideful and arrogant and his father's likeness, he will eventually learn, belongs only to his prodigal sister.

and so, jason grace finds his last name, a family he never knew, friends he could die for and an empty cabin that seemed less lonely with leo or piper in it.

then they went on a quest, leo built a ship and they all set sail to stop gaia from rising.

then jason lost leo, then jason lost everything, then jason lost himself and then lost piper-

and, in the middle of winter, leo valdez came crashing down on a metal dragon with eyes like a nuclear explosion and teeth made for tearing meat from bone, or tearing jason’s heart from his chest.

and then jason found himself again in the space between the junction between leo valdez's fourth and fifth ribs.

leo valdez is a lot of things. he’s a son of hephaestus and a complete asshole. he’s the first child of hephaestus to be born with the ability to create and control fire in over 400 years. he’s a 5’4ft guy who wears platformed boots to make himself seem taller. he’s so powerful that he obliterated gaia. he’s a genius. he thinks spraying axe bodyspray on himself is the same as a shower. he overworks himself even when he doesn’t have to. he can fight gods and go toe-to-toe with any big three kid and hold his own. he likes to survive on a diet of mango monster energy and takis. he's obnoxious. he's thoughtful. he makes mean-spirited jokes at other people's expense. he's the best person jason's ever met

he’s-

currently late for their date.

It’s not that jason minds, per se, but leo has a nasty habit of getting so completely lost in his work that he can plan a date for the next day, and jason won’t see him for at least three days. it’s one of the downsides of being the trophy boyfriend of a genius.

jason sighs and rocks back on his heels, eyes darting up to the grey, overcast sky. he can almost hear leo in his head, asking if he could pretty please make it less goddamn cold? and his pout when jason refuses to change the weather for him.

it's not that jason won't. it's just that he can't. it makes aeolus snappy.

sometimes he still does it. manipulates the air currents just enough to warm the air around them and leo smiles, a real one, small and soft. like it wasn't meant to be seen. a secret thing, just for jason.

jason doesn't see leo smile like that often.

it's mid-february in new york and jason is kicking around central park in the grey mid-day light. it's quiet, this part of the park, with barely anyone passing jason as he leans against a tree, wet dew dripping into his unstyled hair. it's cold, but not cold enough for a freeze or snow. just the right amount of cold to turn your hands numb and purple from cold

which. if you've never seen leo 'was raised in texas and has fire powers' valdez in new york snow, jason fully believes you've never lived.

he spends another 30 minutes splitting his time from staring into space and wandering around the meeting spot they've arranged. it's peaceful here. jason can even hear some birds twittering and chirping in the trees above. the cold even stops bothering him. jason likes being alone sometimes.

it reminds him of the lupercal and lupa. long days and nights in the loneliness of the redwood forest. just him and the wolves and the stars.

though now jason has sturdy boots and a wool jacket, so not exactly the same.

he's in the middle of trying to coax a timid sparrow onto the hand, crouched on the balls of his feet when he feels a presence beside him. he goes stiff when he realises and then, like all the tension has been zapped out of him, goes relaxed again.

"that," leo whispers, also crouched beside jason, "is one fat fucking bird"

jason represses a grin, "don't say that. he's probably barely eaten all winter," and leo snorts, moving closer to jason so their shoulders brush. the bird regards leo with some caution but his black, beady eyes seem to acknowledge that jason would keep him safe.

"he looks better fed than me, jace. do you care more about this bird than your own poor boyfriend?" leo says, faux-sadness in his voice, "how cruel, jason grace. how cruel".

jason turns in time to see leo shake his head, black curls wild around his face as they shudder like leaves in the wind. his eyes are dark brown, watching the bird watch leo. a staring contest.

leo says his name like no one else does. like it's a name. like it's good. like it's something familiar and warm. he does not say 'jason' and imagine a great hero or a wolf-boy with no past. he does not say 'grace' like a joke, like grasp for power, like it carries too much weight for his tongue to bare.

he says it like it belongs to jason. he says it like it's important. not too fast, but not too slow.

leo turns his head to find jason staring at him.

"jason" he calls, lips quirking up at the edge, pulling out the 'o' like toffee, "i know i'm pretty irresistible but please, keep your longing stares for the bedroom"

jason shoves up against leo's shoulder, blush bursting across his already red-cold face.

he pushes just slightly too hard and leo goes spilling across the wet grass, yelping in surprise.

"jason!" he yells, looking up at jason half shocked and half in amusement. "what the fuck, dude!"

jason can't help himself.

leo is wearing jason's hoodie, the black one mrs.blofis picked out for jason which leo claimed as his own even before they started dating. his new denim, fur-lined jacket (from the hide of the nemean lion they killed last year) is just slightly too big and he's wearing black jeans. he looks like the college freshman he is. he looks mortal.

he looks human. he has leaves in his hair and his cheeks are flushed from the cold, teeth showing through the toothy smile he's giving and-

it's uncanny, sometimes, how well they can pass for normal. you almost can't tell leo's died and come back to life. you almost can't tell he's more powerful than any living mortal.

almost.

jason falls on top of leo in the wet grass, which causes leo to yelp, again, and knee jason in the stomach.

jason groans "dude, what the hades was that for?" and he rolls of leo, onto the wet grass beside him, arms protectively covering his bruised stomach.

"you fell directly on top of me, you big lug," and leo sits up, picking a leaf out of his curls absentmindedly, "if you haven't noticed, you're like a bean-pole with muscle mass. that shit hurts!"

jason pouts up at leo, who manages to look both unimpressed and fond. he rolls his eyes and offers his hand to jason, who accepts and leo hauls him into a sitting position in front of him

"hi, leo" jason says finally, "you're late"

"i'm not late, loser, you're just a nerd and get places earlier than normal people. its super weird," leo tells him, matter-of-factly, scooting closer to him as they sit on the ground. "you should really get it checked. might be terminal nerdiness. the glasses are just the first sign"

jason raises an eyebrow, curviving over said glasses. "i didn't know it could be terminal. oh well, guess i'll just wither away and die from being punctual. what an injust life i lead. how the sorrows never end"

leo pouts, eyes sparking with enough warmth to keep out the cold for decades to come, "don't be so down about it, I hear being a nerd has perks,"

jason moves closer, so his knees are half-pulled up to his chest and he's balancing his weight on his hand. leo fits perfectly in the bracket of his arms.

"oh? do tell?" he asks, and leo is close enough that jason can see the faint freckles on his cheeks. they're fading from how far away leo has been from the sun, but jason loves them anyways.

"yup," leo says, popping the p and smiling like the cat who got the cream. "do you know that all nerds get super hot and funny and sexy boyfriends? as compensation for being such nerds, of course"

jason pulls back his head a bit, just as leo laces his arms around his shoulders, "really?" and his voice is soft, but the smile won't disappear from his lips, "wow, didn't know that. guess I'm lucky that you're such a huge nerd or-"

leo kisses him like coming home. and in a way it is.

jason has known many homes. he's known the small apartment with his mother that smelt like spilt wine and smoke and mold. he's known the lupercal and the redwood forests around it. he's known the barracks at camp jupiter and the feeling of purpose in his chest. he's known cabin 1 and cabin 9 and bunker 9 and on the back of festus and on the argo. he's known the feeling of reyna laughing as he tells her wild stories and of the fifth cohort raising him on their shields. he's known lying in leo's private room with piper and leo, listening to low music and feeling safe with just them.

but the one person who jason has felt like home since they met was leo. his high ground through the tsunami. his parachute during a plane crash. the one point of home. like the north-star.

jason smiles into the kiss, his free hand tangling itself in the rough fabric of leo's dark blue denim jacket. it's soft and chaste, more a press of warm lips than anything. it's comforting. it's familiar. it's everything he wants.

leo pulls back a bit, just far enough to speak but still close enough that his breath brushes up against jason's cold face. "hi," he says, brushing his nose against his, "missed you, bro".

jason snorts, "i missed you too, leo, how's MIT treating you?"

"like i'm it's bitch is how it's treating me," leo tells him, slumping slightly into jason, forehead against jason's. "can we not talk about college? i think if we talk about college I might start crying and then our date will be ruined"

jason pulls back a bit to look at leo. he does look more tired than usual, eye-bags darker and lips bitten from nervousness. he frowns, using his free hand to cup his face. "are you okay? we can just go back to your dorm if you're too tired-"

"ugh, no way" leo groans, "fuck that. i just wanna spend time with you, okay? i wanna be mushy and all that gay shit. i want bad food and to kiss you again and again and do more than kissing-"

jason rolls his eyes.

"-and then go back to mrs.blofis apartment and watch really bad movies you like for some reason and then i'll go to sleep beside you and it'll be gay and shit"

"gay and shit?"

"gay and shit, you better believe it grace. but first-"

and leo untangles himself from jason and stands up, brushing the dirt from his knees leaving jason frowning on the floor.

he offers out his hand, brown skin calloused from work, long, thin fingers curled slightly as the palm faced upwards.

"c'mon, super, treat your louis lane to some greasy new york food before he decides batman has better pay"

jason is so, so lucky he got leo valdez. that the fates decides to make sure that his destiny crosses leo's. that he convinced leo valdez to let down his walls, to stay, that jason wouldn't leave him like the others, or hurt him or betray him.

that jason was in it for as long as leo wanted him to be. that jason only wanted leo to say his name, wanted to give it to leo because leo's the only one who's mouth jason trusts with it. that jason wanted to give leo his past. wanted to show him and tell him where he got each scar.

he trusts leo with this. he trusts leo's hands to not burn it all to ash. because he knows that if leo wanted to, he could. he could burn jason alive with a thought. turn him to ash and glass with a flick of his hand.

jason has fallen in love with a nuclear bomb, with a supernova of a boy and jason doesn't care if it kills him, because he has spent so long pretending to be what everyone else needed, that now he was going to be who he wanted to be. even if it got him killed. even if it burned him alive.

jason grace has fallen in love with the human version of a forest fire. he should be afraid of it, of leo. he is not. he never will be.

beryl grace fell in love with the sky itself. wanted all the stars in heaven and didn't care what happened to her. as long as she knew she had the stars attention. as long as she knew the sky loved her back.

as long as he knew the fire loved him back.

he takes his hand.

[kingburu]

[FIC] Birb Funeral

Someone asked me a long time ago what would happen if in the Dearly Departed universe (where Jason is a Son of Hades and Nico is a Son of Jupiter, and everyone is conveniently where I wanted to place them) what would happen if Bianca ended up in Camp Jupiter and Nico ended up in Camp Halfblood. I wrote this a while back for funsies and probably won’t expand, but take an au of an au!

tl;dr: Godswap AU where Jason is a Son of Hades, Nico is a Son of Zeus, and they grew up as childhood friends!

A storm hits first. In twelve-year-old Jason’s ten years at Camp Halfblood, he’s never seen anything as abrasive and harsh as the dark clouds that consumes all winter sunlight, dimming the heavens as though he’s staring at his father’s domain itself. Thunder and lightning boom like a commandeering force, and the rain rattles against the magical barrier around Camp Halfblood, like pelting against hollow tin, but falls on campgrounds like a soft shower.

It rains for three days straight, weakening Hestia’s hearth, cancelling Capture the Flag, and irritating all of the Apollo Cabin, who grow antsy without the sun. Jason is nonplussed by the storm, comforted by the additional shadows that linger—but he’s never quite liked the silence it forced in Cabin Eleven. The silence that used to be comforting, but now hurts as he has to look at the empty bed—the one that reminds him his own chest feels empty, too.

 On the third day, the eagles appear.

 Jason’s already awake, inspecting the other demigods without cabins of their own as he hears the righteous call of three bald eagles flying through the forest. Other campers wake to their squawk, if not the thunderous storm as it seems to boom louder and demand their attention.

 Then, a little boy appears through the forest, sopping wet and looking meager and small as he wobbles through the trees, with a nest of dark hair and bright blue eyes that reminds Jason of the days before the storm. He’s dressed in a ratty pair of jeans, caked in monster blood and—other blood, that immediately worries Jason—and a bright shirt with a lotus symbol on it. The eagles cry out again, encircling the little boy, and flank to either side of him like royal guards.

 Jason jumps as those blue eyes scan their small crowd—widening as they make contact with Chiron—but then turns to him.

 One of the eagles nudges the little boy, who stumbles forward.

 “This,” the little boy says curiously, “is Camp Halfbird, right?”

Halfbird, Jason thinks, puzzled, and he swears he sees both eagles puff their chests out with pride. He doesn’t get to contemplate long—of all the people that are surrounding this little boy, those blue eyes are fixated on him, waiting for an answer. “It’s actually Camp Halfblood—but, yeah, welcome.”

 “Oh,” the little boy says, and his shoulders heave. “Finally.”

 And he collapses forward. There’s a cry in surprise—and out of reflex, Jason steps forward and catches him. His eyes trail over to the may stains on this boy’s shirt—the monster blood, the human blood—and he hears Lee Fletcher crying out for someone to get ambrosia, nectar, and all the works.

 “Wait,” Jason hears himself saying, and the older son of Apollo stares at him in disbelief.

 “Why would we wait, Grace?” Lee demands.

 Jason props the boy up on his arm, the nest of dark hair bobbing as they move. “Because he’s snoring.”

 *

 Upon carrying the little boy to the infirmary, they all discover their newest camper has a vice grip and refuses to let go of Jason. Beckendorf, a much older camper, tries once while Jason takes this boy who can’t be older than nine or ten, and Jason’s head almost comes off with it. They stop trying when they hear a little sob. Jason thinks he hears a name—Bianca?—and confines himself to carry the boy to one of the cots.

 Jason has to rock on his feet and stand to the tips of his toes—and practically falls over as he sets the boy down, arms still bound around him, but eventually manages to wriggle out of the grip. He stares at the boy, puzzled, as this new demigod just rolls into a ball, expression unseen.

 The eagles caw outside—and from the window, Jason sees them soar past the window, evidently deciding to remain close.

 “Jace,” Lee says, which startles him, “why don’t you get him some new clothes?”

 Lee’s already washed his hands, rubber gloves on, and is picking up an arm to inspect this boy. He wrinkles his nose as his hand stains with mud.

 “Oh—okay,” Jason says—and he stays just long enough for Lee’s apprentice and little brother, Will, pull a twig out of dark hair.

 Jason sprints to the Big House. On his way back to the infirmary, he watches as both eagles spread their wings and shriek, glowering at him. Jason cringes, staring at them with hesitation.

 The door opens, and Will pokes his head out curiously. He stares up at the rooftop and mimics Jason’s expression. “You think they’re going to stay long?”

 “Hard to say,” Jason mumbles uncomfortably. He takes a thoughtful step towards the infirmary and the eagles make another sound of displeasure. A loud moan comes from the infirmary—childish and feeble, and the eagles suddenly cock their heads to that instead. Jason takes the distraction to climb the porch steps and sighs with relief. “Guess it depends on how long this kid wants to stay.”

 Will pats his shoulder sympathetically. “We’ll find an animal that likes you eventually.”

 *

 New campers, of course, fall under the jurisdiction of Cabin Eleven, and Connor and Travis insist that this new kid already imprinted on Jason, despite not being the head counselor. Jason knows that this kid is recovering from whatever journey brought him to Long Island and the last thing he needs is to be at the mercy of the Stoll Brothers’ pranks, so he halfheartedly agrees.

 The storm subsides pretty quickly after the kid arrives, and business seems to resume as usual. People are already placing bets on what cabin this kid belongs to—if he belongs to any cabin, and Jason tries very hard not to hope that this kid belongs in the cabin that the eagles and the obnoxious storm suggest.

 He spends most of the time in the infirmary, passing on his sword-training classes to Clarisse—and the boy wakes up just long enough to be spoonfed ambrosia and change into a clean shirt and pants. Every day, they find at least one twig in his hair while they’re not looking. He doesn’t speak very much at first—eventually Will and Lee decide to just let Jason handle this kid on his own to tend to other campers who are at the mercy of Clarisse’s sword training.

 On the third day of this kid’s arrival, Jason walks up the porch of the med bay and the eagles squawk angrily, per usual. Jason opens the door and notices the kid perk at his arrival, in contrast to the screaming eagles.

 “You feeling any better?” Jason asks.

 The blue eyes stare at him carefully, then nod. He squints thoughtfully at Jason, then speaks for the first time since arriving during the storm the other day. “They keep screaming death when you walk by.”

 Jason blinks. “They?”

 The boy gestures to the roof. “Lark and Sparrow.”

 Blond eyebrows furrow together. “Who?”

 “Lark and Sparrow,” the boy repeats.

 It takes a moment, but Jason’s eyebrows raise, puzzled. “You mean the eagles?”

 “Yeah.” The boy nods, then pauses. “They had an older sister—Cloud, but—well, she…” The boy’s eyes moisten and his gaze falls to his hands sadly. “She didn’t make it.”

 Oh. Jason doesn’t quite consider it a superpower, but he can pick up on the tone of a mourning soul, even if it’s for an eagle. Lark and Sparrow, the eagles (Jason doesn’t think he’ll ever get his mind wrapped around that) clearly love this little boy very much. Unfortunately, no one at camp speaks bird, and they’ve gone almost a week now not knowing this boy’s story—even if he wants to tell it.

 Jason retrieves a stool, setting aside the ambrosia sundae. “Do you…want to tell me about Cloud?”

 The boy raises his head curiously, evidently surprised to be encouraged, and then nods. “Cloud was their leader. She’s the one that found me first in—in the accident. And then she promised me that the four of them would get to camp. She—” His voice cracks. “—she couldn’t keep that promise.”

 Jason flashes a look of concern. After a few meals of ambrosia and clean clothes, the boy looks better, but feeling better is another story entirely.

 “Lark’s a good listener though, I think she makes Sparrow feel better,” the boy continues.

 The edge of Jason’s lip curls.

 “What?” the boy asks, and he blinks.

 “Nothing—I’m glad they got you here safe. I’m sure Cloud is proud,” Jason reassures. He reaches for the ambrosia sundae and at this point, the boy knows it’s for him. “I’ve never met birds that were named after other birds.”

 The boy shrugs nonchalantly. “Names are names. Did you know that Hades named his dog Spot?”

 Jason makes a face, watching as this boy pluck a cherry off the sundae and plop it in his mouth. Of all the deities the boy could have chosen (before they checked to see if he actually understands what’s going on—the death of Cloud the Eagle seems to suggest he does.) “I’ve—actually never thought about it that way.”

 “It just sounds cooler because it’s Greek,” the boy says. “Like your name. Otherwise, people would be walking around calling you Healer.”

 “I’m. Sorry, what?”

 “Your name,” the boy repeats, and it’s impossible not to stare at the bits of whipped cream at the corner of his lip. “Jason.”

 “You know my name,” Jason says slowly, on eyebrow arched in the air. This boy has been silent for the last two days, taking in his environment with wide, curious eyes. Jason had seen the boy’s mouth drop when Grover had come to check on him.

 The boy’s cheeks flush, and he quickly nods. “I heard the other two say it.”

 The other two, the boy said. Not Lee and Will. Jason blinks once again. “You know my name and you know the meaning behind my name.”

 “It was in the Argonaut Expansion pack,” the boy continues. “The trivia in the wrapper.”

 Much like Lark and Sparrow, Jason tries to connect the dots in his head. “You mean Mythomagic?”

 The sundae falls from the boy’s hands, and to Jason’s surprise, those blue eyes suddenly glitter with excitement. “You know Mythomagic? Do you play? Do you have a favorite character?”

 He’s vibrating in his seat, and Jason actually leans back to keep ice cream from falling on him. Jason reaches over and dabs the melted ice cream with a tissue. “I’ve dabbled. You’ll see some of the other kids playing Mythomagic here. It helps them understand our world better. Our—hey. So. Do you…understand how you got here? What’s going on?”

 The boy stares at him, puzzled, evidently confused.

 “So you and I—this entire camp,” Jason says slowly, “we’re halfbloods.”

 “Halfbirds?”

 “Halfbloods,” Jason corrects. “Demigods. It means that we’re half human, half—”

 “Half god,” the boy finishes with an excited whisper. His eyes glitter again. “Like Mythomagic.”

 “Yeah, exactly like Mythomagic—”

 “Oh my god,” the boy says again—and the way he vibrates in the bed would make Jason think he was never healing in the first place. “My dad was a god? Oh my dad!”

 Jason stares at the boy in surprise. For a kid that had emerged from the forest covered in blood and spoils, this is the quickest he’s ever seen a demigod recover from learning about their parentage. This kid is acting just like he sounds—a kid—and is now grinning from ear-to-ear.

 “Who’s your parent? Apollo? Aphrodite?” The boy claps his hand on the mattress, then leans close to Jason with a gasp. “It’s Thanatos, isn’t it? That’s why Lark and Sparrow keep screaming death!”

 “Um, Hades, actually—” Jason peels the ice cream sundae away from the bed before it can spill, unable to hide his surprise. Most people didn’t list gods outside the main twelve, let alone mention his dad’s lieutenant of all people. He expects the boy to gulp and shirk away at first—like other kids did when they realized they were suddenly standing with the child of the King of the Dead, but the boy’s hand fall and he stares at Jason with even more fascination.

 “He has 4000 attack power,” the boy whispers in amazement. “5000 if someone else attacks first.”

 Jason blinks, yet again confounded by this boy’s enthusiasm. “Yeah—I think I heard that. You’re not…scared?”

 The boy doesn’t hear him. Instead, he’s mumbling again, evidently still stuck on Jason’s parentage with utter amazement. He falls silent, then looks back up to Jason with hopeful eyes. “Can we hold a funeral for Cloud?”

 This time, Jason’s lips fold into the familiar shape, aching almost, into the first smile that he’s had in a long time. “Is that what you want?”

 The boy nods up and down. “A funeral for Lark and Sparrow’s sister, and maybe a funeral for my—” The boy cuts himself off, the excitement suddenly waning. Jason can see it in the boy’s expression, something hitting him like a freight train, and it looks more solemn and more mournful than it did for Cloud.

 Oh. This boy has seen death recently—and not just for the sister of someone else.

 Jason reaches out and places a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Blue eyes look back up to him, sadder than the bouncing boy from before.

 “We’ll give Cloud a Grecian funeral, just like in Mythomagic,” Jason says quietly. At the M word, the boy cocks his head back up, eyebrows furrowed. “And another for whoever else needs one. Whenever you’re ready.”

 The boy sniffles, his eyes swelling with tears once more.

 “Whenever you’re ready,” Jason repeats.

 “Okay.” To his surprise, the boy throws his arms around Jason like the first day, vice grip and all.

 Jason hesitates—but then folds his arms around the other boy, patting sympathetically as he hears the sniffles grow louder.

 *

 After Will and Lee give the okay, Jason plans a funeral in the woods for Cloud the Eagle—which quickly goes awry from the Grecian traditions that he had planned when Nico explains Lark and Sparrow’s constructive notes. Two of the notes include burying part of their sister “like humans do”—with things that she held dear. Nico whips a feather out of his hair, insistent that it came from the late bird, and explains that Cloud’s favorite items included bird seed and bottle caps.

 Thus, Jason instructs Nico to fill a lunch box with bird seed and bottle caps (there’s a small intermission where Jason watches Nico lecture Lark and Sparrow about eating their sister’s afterlife food) before placing the eagle feather gingerly on top, then listens to Nico and the birds deliver a eulogy for their fallen comrade.

 Grover plays the reedpipes as they lower the lunch box into the ground, and daffodils sprout over the mound. He’s touched, of course, that someone would care enough to want to hold a funeral for an animal of nature.

 “Will Charon accept bird seeds?” Nico asks worriedly.

 Jason doesn’t miss the way Grover suddenly squawks on the reed pipes, evidently amused by the question. He places a hand on Nico’s shoulder, not missing the way that Nico inches closer into his bubble. “Um, animals are out of Charon’s jurisdiction.”

 Nico frowns, clearly upset.

 “They usually get reincarnated. Sometimes as plants, or as new animals,” Grover explains. Jason has to hold back a sigh of relief—he doesn’t know how much more he can talk about death, but Grover is charmed enough. He gestures to the eagles. “Maybe a lark. Or a sparrow. Or—”

 “Or a raven?” Nico asks.

 Grover nods sagely, flashing a look that Jason has always received growing up. Then he ruffles Nico’s hair. “You sure know your birds, Nico.”

 Nico shrugs, the worry about Cloud not reaching the Underworld dissipating. Then, he notices what Jason has been wary of since the young demigod’s arrival. Nico gestures to Lark and Sparrow, who’d given Jason the stink eye since arriving at camp. “Why don’t they like you? They keep calling you the Deathbringer.”

 Jason cringes, and he notices Grover do it too. “Yeah—well, animals aren’t fond of me. They sense death.”

 Another frown curls against Nico’s lips, and the next look that the flashes his birds causes them to behave and stand erect. “But you just helped them bury their sister.”

 “Yeah, tell them that,” Grover mutters, and he nudges Jason affectionately.

 “I am,” Nico assures, and he climbs to his feet. The eagles squawk nervously—and then Nico turns around, his blue eyes fully on Jason. “And you’re so cool.”

 Grover spills into a grin, and Jason’s eyebrows raise in confusion. He can hardly call spending the afternoon filling a lunch box with bird seed and fending off grouchy birds cool. “You think I’m cool?”

 Unabashed, this boy stares at Jason with the same intrigue as he did when Jason started comparing Mythomagic to their lives. “The coolest.”

 Red flourishes in Jason’s cheeks, and Grover is elbowing him again. Before he can open his mouth, Nico turns to his pet eagles, hands on his hips like a doting mother.

 “If you two can’t respect Jason for holding a funeral for Cloud,” Nico says in his best parenting tone, “then scram.”

 Both birds make a sound, evidently shocked, but Nico places a hand in front of him, halting their speech.

 “No,” Nico says, “I’ll be okay here. Please go home.”

 Jason watches in utter disbelief as both birds pick themselves up, glaring at him, before flying away.

 Grover pats him on the shoulder. “You don’t want to know what they said.”

 Nico falls to his knees again and pets the daffodils over Cloud’s makeshift grave. His eyebrows furrow together, evidently troubled at the departure of their friends, but seems set on his decision.

 When he gets over his stupor, Jason clears his throat and walks up behind Nico, finally able to get close to this little grave that he helped make without prying eagle eyes. He kneels to the ground and pats a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s get you settled in at Cabin Eleven.”

[titular-twins-tournament]

LINE UP AND SOME OTHER STUFF

Ok I’m just going to send this out. Instead of overthinking on the inclusion of some contestants. Thank you again to all who submitted in characters!

Anyways I decided matchups will be done pretty much at random. There is a total of 64 contestants though, and am releasing just the line up for now so you guys know who’s going to be in it. I don’t have matchups done yet so again, this is just the line up of characters.

Also feel free to drop suggestions in asks for any picture(s) you’d like me to use for visuals in polls when those get released! Looking for stuff in the characters official media source(s) as I don’t want to accidentally take fanart without permission (unless ofc, if anyone wants to submit in their own fanart for characters- I will credit you if I end up using it)

Fandom - Characters

1. Gravity Falls- Dipper and Mabel Pines

2. The Owl House- Edric and Emira Blight

3. Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- Leo and Donnie Hamato

4. The Adventure Zone- Lup and Taako

5. Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina- Vex and Vax

6. Sanders Sides- Roman and Remus Sanders

7. The Locked Tomb- Ianthe and Coronabeth Tridentarius

8. Genshin Impact- Lumine and Aether

9. Star Wars- Luke and Leia

10. The Parent Trap- Annie and Hallie

11. Greek Mythology- Apollo and Artemis

12. Black Butler- Ciel and “Ciel” Phantomhive

13. Bob’s Burgers- Andy and Ollie Pesto

14. Ouran High School Club- Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin

15. Steven Universe- The Rutile twins

16. Danganronpa- Junko Enoshima and Mukuro Ikusaba

17. Masters of the Universe- Adam and Adora

18. How To Train Your Dragon- Ruffnut and Tuffnut

19. Dungeons and Daddies- Lark and Sparrow Oak

20. Pokémon- Emmet and Ingo

21. Avatar the Last Airbender- Lo and Li

22. Twisted Wonderland- Jade and Floyd Leech

23. Final Fantasy XIV- Alphinaud and Alisaie Leveilleur

24. The Suite Life of Zack & Cody- Zack and Cody

25. Highschool Musical- Sharpay and Ryan Evans

26. Liv and Maddie- Liv and Maddie

27. Disney Fairies- Tinkerbell and Periwinkle

28. Archie Comics- Cheryl and Jason Blossom

29. Sky Children of the Light- The Valley Elders (aka Sah and Mek)

30. Lego Ninjago- Krux and Acronix (The Time Twins)

31. MCU- Wanda and Pietro Maximoff

32. IDOLiSH7- Nanase Riku and Kujo Tenn

33. Super Mario Bros- Mario and Luigi

34. Mother 3 (aka Earthbound)- Lucas and Claus

35. Devil May Cry- Dante and Vergil

36. Animal Crossing- Timmy and Tommy

37. Evillious Chronicles- Riliane Lucifen d'Autriche and Allen Avadonia

38. A Song of Ice and Fire- Jaime and Cersie Lannister

39. Honkai Impact 3rd- Liliya and Rozaliya Olenyeva

40. Red VS Blue- Agent North Dakota and Agent South Dakota

41. The Twelfth Night- Viola and Sebastian

42. The Simarillion- Amrod and Amras

43. Percy Jackson- Castor and Pollux

44. The Penumbra Podcast- Juno and Benzaiten Steel

45. Ace Attorney- Dahlia Hawthorne and Sister Iris

46. Dimension 20: A Crown if Candy- Jet and Ruby Rocks

47. Haikyuu- Osamu and Atsumu Miya

48. All For the Game- Andrew and Aaron Minyard

49. Trigun- Vash and Knives

50. Roman Mythology- Romulus and Remus

51. Blue Exorcist- Rin and Yukio Okumura

52. Transformers- Sunstreaker and Sideswipe

53. Legend of Korra- Eska and Desna

54. Mystic Messenger- 707 and Unknown (aka Saeyoung and Saeran Choi)

55. Ensemble Stars- Hinata and Yuta Aoi

56. Obey Me- Beelzebub and Belphegor

57. Happy Tree Friends- Shifty and Lifty

58. Rugrats- Phil and Lillian

59. Don’t Starve- Wendy and Abigail

60. Identity V- Joseph and Claude Desaulniers

61. Dragonlance- Caramon and Raistlin

62. Re: Zero- Rem and Ram

63. Cursed Princess Club- Gwen and Jamie

64. Ducktales (2017)- Della and Donald Duck