#both of the fantasy variety and only in mention but still

[pluck-heartstrings]

you mention full fantasy I am 👀 at the sort of magic you’ll be using in the new fic~ what variety is there, are there many other sorcerers/spellcasters, what’s Eclipse’s favourite flavour? (enchantment, destructive, transformative, etc) - @clxckwork-sun-n-moon

Ohohoho /rolls up my sleeves/ I'll give you as much info as I can without spoiling too much.

Ok so Magic (true magic) comes from covenants with celestials right? Automatons can use magic but it's more alchemical based; basically they have to use the elements and it's a very wasteful/time consuming process. Once the wizard or spellcaster or whatever enters a covenant, they have access to the celestial's domain of elements.

Lemme break down the kinds of celestials:

Minor Stars

Constellations

Major Celestial Deities

(there are more than these three but they're more intricate and less useful)

Minor Stars are small, hyperspecific celestials. This is the most common type of covenant. The Star has access to a very watered down, niche element (think Strontium), meaning that the caster can use that element freely in whatever creative ways they can without time/waste. They can conjure a limitless amount of that element and its up to the caster to use their minds to conjure uses with that element. Strontium, for example, is used in the creation of bright lights and is slightly radioactive, meaning that they (the caster) can control the amount of brightness in the space they inhabit. I hope this makes sense.

Constellations are groups of stars that don't want to be separated. Each star in the constellation is a minor star. For clarity's sake they still exist as one covenant, but the power is amplified. Think of it like a close-knit poly group that refuses to be separated at all costs. This caster has access to a wider variety of elements (each celestial usually close together on the periodic table) and the 'battery' of the caster is greatly improved. Constellation covenants are rare and require a peaceful personality to govern.

There are only two known Celestial Deities: the rival siblings the Sun and the Moon. You can understand now how Eclipse is so confident in his power. The covenant of a single one is equal to a King, the covenant of both is considered impossible, especially since the two don't get along.

Sun and Moon have access to a huge variety of elements, not limited to the singular minor stars. This allows Eclipse to be as free with his power as he wants to, but he focuses on gravitational magic and solar flares for dramatics.

(TL:DR- basically it's like alchemy from FMA, except the periodic table)

[wondermumbles]

reblogging to get into this properly, because it's so fascinating!

Lettie's implications seem especially deep: she has Aztec religious beliefs and she speaks Spanish. so did Spanish conquistadors still invade the Americas, but Catholicism didn't take root? does Catholicism exist? is the dualistic Sol/Lua religion dominant almost worldwide in the way Abrahamic religions are in the real world? was there no Spanish conquest and Lettie just happens to be from a blended mesoamerican and Spanish family that lives in Libertatia?

I like how Quincy mentions bigotry but doesn't specify what it's about. it leaves the door open for so many possibilities. is it classism, which indeed seems likely? does this Earth have racial bigotry? is it because he's not heterosexual? or is it something we would never guess because it's something else entirely? how many of these things is it?

lemme digress:

usually when speculating about worldbuilding in fantasy and sci-fi settings, I like to imagine that, while they have their own problems, they don't have our sexism, homophobia, etc., at least not to a high degree. but Warframe's world is fairly grimdark, and I'm willing to assume gender/sex/sexuality bigotry existed in Orokin and pre-Orokin societies (and some of the many post-Orokin societies)

(it's tempting for me to imagine that being freed from the Orokin would result in open-minded cultures more often than not, but in reality the freedom people tend to want is the freedom to enforce their own varieties of bigotry, not a total freedom from bigotry)

whether or not dualism was dominant yet in 1999, it survived in one form or another all the way into the Orokin era. the Orokin appointed themselves as gods instead of Sol and Lua, but they believed in a basic dualism of existence in which everything has a(n equal and opposite?) counterpart

that would support a strict binary of sex and gender, potentially. important to note, ofc, that their ideas about gender expression and gender roles didn't necessarily resemble anything that's common in the real world. probably a strong delineation between mother vs father, though, and a high priority on having both in a family, and on only having two parents, unfortunately--but what that would actually mean in terms of domestic, professional, and emotional roles? who knows

as for sexuality, that's a wide open question too, but they strike me as the kind of culture that allows for same-sex, same-gender sex and romance on the side while firmly expecting hetero marriage, as in Athens or Tokugawa Japan. that would fit neatly around the fact that Albrecht had Loid as a lover while also having a family that didn't see Loid as a second father

aaaa, I just love worldbuilding that can be absorbed from observation of what's present and what's absent! my ADHD+depression usually doesn't let me read long in-game texts or wiki articles, so I'm all in on this kind of speculation

it's a good thing that quincy lives in an alternate timeline, otherwise i'd be very tempted to point out that the uk only introduced tuition fees for university in 1998 and he would've gone to uni for free.

and even then, fees were originally means-tested so quincy probably would've been exempt from... the £1000 a year tuition fees.

anyway, i know this was probably done because digital extremes is canadian and the biggest chunk of this game's playerbase is american, where tuition fees don't really seem to be regulated by the government, but it would've been so nice. now i've just got to wonder what worldbuilding implications there are for all the brits to be calling uni "college" (college is mostly for 16-18 year olds here) and for tuition fees to start even earlier than they did irl.

[quillfulwriter]

Prompt from @loveofdragonage for the Valentine’s event, although this post is very platonic.

Words: 1000 | Rating: T

Feynriel has a lot to think about, now that he's studying in Tevinter. Mainly the world, his place in it, and what the future might hold for a half-elf Somniari.

Tip this post if you like the story! ✨

Kofi commissions are also open ☕

[dropoutconfessions]

It makes me incredibly angry when people say "Riz is canonically aro/ace" and act like you're a horrible person if you ship him with people. Like. Nowhere in the show is it ever stated that he's aro/ace. The conversation people reference as him being "canonically" aro/ace is just him expressing his lack of very specifically sexual attraction, and even then the response from his dad (and by extension Brennan and the show as a whole) is that it's okay, and that it's specifically unclear whether he's ace or whether it's just not something that's happened for him in specific yet. It is intentionally vague as to whether he is ace or not, and there's genuinely zero indication in the show that he's aro other than that he doesn't have a love interest which could be completely unrelated.

Right so I'd like to share my opinion on this for a brief moment. I am still fully here to give people a voice, but this is just, an issue that kinda hits close to home since I'm demiaro.

The most annoying thing in a lot of media is when representation is shoehorned in as a list of labels and buzzwords we're given. Queer people should not have to turn to the screen and say their full identity in order for them to be canonically queer. That's what subtext is for. That's what good writing does. Is not spell it out for you when it's not necessary to do so. They do not need it to be spelt out for it to be very clear that he's ace/aro.

I am going to assume ignorance here instead of assuming malicious intent. The idea that the reason he isn't ace, is because "it's not something that's happened for him in specific yet", is an extremely common thought process behind asexual erasure. I'm sure that's not what you intended, but that is something to reflect on in general.

Both Adaine and Riz have yet to have relationships or display crushes (not counting junior year since most of the evidence comes from sophomore year) . Adaine hasn't gotten an entire nightmare sequence / arc around dealing with here friends all finding partners and leaving them alone. Adaine hasn't expressed or had conversations about any lack of sexual or romantic feels to the extent Riz has. Adaine is headcanoned as ace/aro by some people. Riz is more than that. Riz is very much canonically ace/aro if you do the slightest bit of character analysis. There's accidental coding and then there's Riz Gukgak.

List of every single Riz trait that is hella ace/aro coded

A lack of sexual and romantic attraction to other people (I'm not counting the time where he said he was kinda into Sexy Rat, that whole scene was a bit, and absolutely insane)

Making up a partner/crush in order to fit in (I have 1000% done that and so have a lot of acespec and arospec people)

A fear of being left behind by his friends because of a belief that they will find partners and move on from him, largely caused by alloromantic culture's insane emphasis on how the most important relationship is a romantic one

The fact that almost every other fantasy high pc has been in a relationship or a crush (kristen had tracker and gertie, gorgug had zelda, unit, and mary ann, fabian had aelwyn, ivy, and mazey, adaine had oisin and possibly zayn depends on your interpretation, and fig has had ayda and a string of professionals in a variety of fields across seasons 1 and 2) with only riz as a single character

The fact his sophomore year arc was entirely about his lack of sexual/romantic attraction and fear of being left alone because of it

Like not even a joke, it was that and his dad, that was the whole arc

His junior year arc was also about his obsession to stay together as a friend group, which like I mentioned above, is very clearly based in his asexuality and aromanticism

I am not going to stop people from shipping characters ever. If you want to rewrite character sexualities, that's fine by me, I'm a big believer in "Don't Like, Don't Read". I am not gonna pretend like characters are not their sexuality in canon so that people feel justified in writing their stories. People who rewrite character sexuality can do so without making everyone else assuage their guilt for them. I know I'm on the "piss on the poor" reading comprehension website, but it's not hard to tell Riz is ace/aro in canon, and pretending otherwise doesn't help your case.

[hummingbird-games]

2024 in Review (Indie Games)

2023 | 2022 | 2021

Helloooo gamer friends!!!

I'm so tired.

Lol.

Anyhoo, y'all don't care about that!!! Y'all are here to see what games I played and what the heck I have to say about them! Reminders: I don't bash games I didn't like, and I try to post more in-depth thoughts and reviews and general yapping to Gem's Game Gems.

DEMOS

When Stars Collide - I am by no means a sci-fi girlie. I need a HEAPING dose of fantasy or fantasy elements to help me out. That said, y'all might remember how I went feral for Gilded Shadows, so I am locked in for this journey with WSC. It's just as mysterious and lore intense as GS, but also just as intriguing and engaging!

Love Me, Love Me Not - I looooove when a game charms me to pieces??? Our MC Addie, the introduced LIs, the story, the art??? Where do I begin?? Anyway, please check this one out y'all! I'm impatient for the full game (shocker, I know).

Threads of You: Beyond the Bay - So my thoughts and reactions for this one are on the side blog, but I really enjoyed the demo and I have eyes for Chris, Vince, and Alex hehehe.

Lost in Limbo - While I'd been keeping tabs on this game for what seems forever because of the character art that originally caught my attention, I almost didn't finish the demo because it was lowkey disturbing (I'm a wimp and not all horror is made equal). But!!! BUT!!!! I push through to the end, had a good time, noted that I need to play the full game in the daylight with the music turned down low. And I absolutely adore Ara and Xal so, so much.

A Simple Twist of Fae - Absolutely no one cares, but I read a lot of manga this year. Like, a lot-a lot. Like, ~180 books and 1/3 of that was manga. Anyhoo, When JMB announced she was cooking up this game, I was impatient to get my grubby hands on it. AND THEN I PLAYED IT AND IT WAS THE SHOJO INSPIRED GAME OF MY DREAMS?!?! Like.....I wish I could both have it on my computer and also on my bookshelf. Final build dropping when??? (Also the UI design is utterly delightful, I cry.)

The Summit Library (FULL DEMO) - The last time I reviewed this game, we got chapter 1 as a taste, and I was. Locked! In!! The full demo gives us the first 2 chapters as well as the previews for all the romance routes and while giving everyone a whirl I'm *still* undecided on who to go for in the future, I must mention this: TSL is so aspec friendly???? I do love a game with smut, don't get me wrong looks at College Craze but sometimes I have my moments of being overwhelmed/sliiiiiiightly repulsed and the variety of options you have to choose how you react and interact with the various LIs in this game is amazing. (I have more thoughts on this, so I'll try to remember to post to the sideblog, but please understand that this game is totally worth your attention and time imo!!!)

Fully Released & Played (at least 1 playthrough)

Rabbit Trail - This. Game. Is. SO. Cute. *punches the air* 😭🥹(Copy + paste of my review on the itch.io page -> This was so charming, so fluffy, so cozy, just delightful all around??? I've only reached one ending so far, but René is just the cutest protag to play as, and his interactions as he delivers his mail made me cheese so dang hard! (Also, I wanted to fight his parents for not properly appreciating their kid LOL))

Stuck by Design - I checked this game out because I was looking into games that fellow programmers had worked on, and this cozy game stumbled onto my lap. The music was perfect, the UI is beautiful and clean, and I thoroughly enjoyed the performance of the VA for the LI, Yuki.

Wake Me Up If You Need Me - I called this game older!HSDJY MC x Ryan coded and I'm still right. The voice actor MAKES this game, and the interactions the player has with Reed is so flippin' delightful?? All my love and adoration to the game developer. May they make more beautiful games.

CTRL FREAK - The developer team brought us The Faithfulness of the Universe which is a banger in its own right, and CTRL FREAK is the team's commercial, finished project that I also found delightful. The soundtrack and the animations are chef's kiss 💛

Breathless Winds - Ooo, baby, ooo. So. If there is only one game you play from this list and you have some spare cash to spend (at the time of writing, the game is on sale!!!) please, please, check this one out. It left me absolutely spellbound, both the orginal demo, and then the full game. While I didn't get to blog fully about this one, and I only tackled 2 of the 4 routes, this game is absolutely everything. This is my indie game of the year. Poppy and her journey resonated with me, and between the music and the art, everything just came together so perfectly.

Wake Up Magical Girl - Listen TF up, if miseri creates it, I'm gonna play it, idc, idc. That being said...this game had a kick to it that when I finished my first playthrough, I had to stare off into space and gather myself. It takes the concept of magical girls and heroism and gave me a teeny tiny existential crisis, but other than that, I'm fine, it's fine, play this game, thank you.

Sleeping Under Spells - God, I love me a game where I get to argue with a LI. I love it. Bonus points if it's lowkey stupid stuff we're bickering over LOL!!

Our Wonderland - Yeah, uh huh, you thought you'd escape me talking about this game this year, didn't yah???? Too bad. The fifth and final arc dropped this year and I played it and I cried and felt for the briefest moments that life was okay. To say something different than my review of last year, I love that this seems to be the game that helps fellow ace devs find and flock to each other, I'm not kidding 🤣 so thank you Carrot for helping us fellow aspec peeps feel seen and validated and understood!

I Watched a Full Game Playthrough and Highly Recommend

Replay Boys - Okay so technically at the time of posting, there's still one more video I'm waiting to watch (Naja of BlerdyOtome uploaded her stream to YouTube) but my Godddddd. I've had my eye on this game for FOREVER but I was lowkey waiting for it to move to itch.io (I'm still a lowkey Steam hater 🥹) anyhoo, watching this absolutely wild game made me go ahead and buy a copy for myself to replay at a later time, but it's just great. The summary only scratches this surface of what the game entails 🤣

Gemi’s Gushies

(a list within a list of games that have devs trucking along in the background and I want to spotlight for y’all)

Save the Villainess - Life got away with me and unfortunately I never finished my play of the demo BUT what I have played was fun and I hope to return to this in the new year!

Woman of Xal 2 - Plot Twist Studios is on that Sequel Train with the next installment of WoX!!! Which I'm VERY excited for!!! I've unfortunately only completed one playthrough of this game, but the first game is definitely a masterclass in replayability, and I hope next year I'll be able to do a second playthough as I wait for game 2's Kickstarter!

...

And that's 2024! Any shared favorites?

- Gemini 🫶🏾

[curioussubjects]

How is there a throuple on prime time TV?And why are they the medical staff on a luxury cruise?

I'm still not sure how Doctor Odyssey is a real show that's airing every week and not some fever dream, but since it seems to be that it is a real show, here's why I think it's yet another medical procedural drama...and on a cruise!

While polyamory has become more widely acknowledged in the mainstream, it's hardly normalized or even common in both media and people's lives. Likewise, queer representation, especially that of bisexual men, is still far from being without controversy (if it's allowed to be represented at all, as Supernatural fans like myself well know).

So, again, how in the world is Doctor Odyssey, which very explicitly centers the developing sexual and romantic relationship between Max, Avery, and Tristan a thing that exists? Or, to put it another way: if we have a story that is unusual for most people and even uncomfortable for many of them, how can that story be told without alienating the audience?

The answer: tell it in a way that feels familiar, and maybe a little detached from reality. So, medical procedural drama on a cruise! Ok, let me explain:

Why a Medical Procedural Drama?

Not only has the the genre been a staple of American television since the 90s (thanks, ER), it's a type of story that is told in formulaic ways. It is, after all, a procedural. Both its familiarity and predictability allow the audience to sit back and enjoy the story unfold with its expected beats. This type of TV is meant to be fun and easy to watch. Such shows might give you some current issues beats to ponder as you watch, but they're not making you do a lot of work.

But why medical as opposed to law enforcement, which is a much more common type of procedural? Because, thanks to the legacy of shows like Grey's Anatomy and House MD., medical dramas have a lot more leeway to be dramatic AND unrealistic while somehow preserving the veneer of realism. It's this allowance for dramatics and breaches of realism that create a comfortable bubble of "sure this might as well happen" that prevents the audience from being alienate when faced with a wide variety of topics that can be as accurate or fantastical as the plot demands.

Polyamory, within this broader landscape, can be a Very Special Episode that just so happens to span every episode, and viewers can be carried through that plot by the familiar patterns and conventions of the genre.

Why on a Cruise?

Oh, aren't medical procedurals so cliché? How can we make it interesting?? I know, put them on a cruise! We haven't put doctors on a cruise yet! (totally 100% real conversation on ABC)

Sure, the cruise premise stinks of gimmick, but what if that's the point? Surely, most people would see a show like Doctor Odyssey and imagine that what makes it different is that it's set on a cruise. Yeah, that's not completely untrue, but the cruise serves a much more important purpose than being a differential on a pitch.

In fact, the cruise, like the medical procedural, is another liminal space that allows for multiple ways to engage in fantasy or reality as the plot demands. Mainly, and most crucially, though, the cruise is a bubble, an illusion, which is a point the show itself makes in the pilot episode. It is unmoored (heh) from the expectations of land, like accurate representations of healthcare, or say...monogamy as default. As such, the cruise makes not only for a dynamic choice of setting, but a very intentional one.

Reality Check:

The interplay between genre and setting is crucial. The audience, with all its expectations, of what a medical procedural drama is know what they're tuning in for, and they can easily imagine the dramatic (or ridiculous) nature of the cases that will be present in a luxury cruise. True enough, as I mentioned before, the pilot episode starts by being very honest that the cruise is an illusion: the captain shows and describes all the craft and skill that goes into creating a safe space for passengers to engage in fantasy. The genre savvy audience is then invited into aligning not with the cruise passengers, but with the crew.

Except Doctor Odyssey isn't really about the medicine, or the cruise, is it? It's about Max, Tristan, and Avery. So the audience is given a choice at the metanarrative level: be the passenger or be the crew. Be aware that the point of the story is the polyamory or tune in for medical staff...on a cruise! Win-win! What I think is fun and clever about all this is that no matter who you choose to align yourself with, you can't ever truly escape reality lurking in the wings. The polyamory is simply there no matter how resistant the audience, but the setting and the genre create a buffer around it.

Sure you can have a threesome on a cruise, it's like Vegas. No big. Nothing threatening to social conventions. It's not real. But reality has a way of reasserting itself: in the tragedies that befall the passengers on the ship, or their mishaps, or the cherished memories they'll look back on. And while the crew upkeeps the illusion, they aren't immune or completely separate from its effects (good and bad). No one can divest themselves from what they experience on the cruise and neither can the viewer.

Through genre convention and its setting, Doctor Odyssey (and I mean, look at this title alone lol) navigates the unfamiliar waters of accepting the richness of the human condition (to echo Captain Massey), and brings the audience safely to shore with a new understanding of what relationships can look like.

And this is how Doctor Odyssey managed to get produced and make it to air, and we get to be unhinged about Tristan, Max, Avery, and the YEARNING. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk etc.

[quaissants]

ISA LANG    ୨୧    PARK JONGSEONG  ˒  JAY

purpose born to be niki coded, transformed into arthur nery coded ・ gender neutral reader + word count 857 genre fluff .. angst .. best friends au warnings mention of food note i swear this is based on a dialogue prompt but i forgot the user — return to the academy

jay wasn’t made for late nights.

as much as he doesn’t want to stir guilt within his best friend, he struggles to conceal the symptoms. swallowed by his wrinkled hoodie, he curls his tired figure against the headboard. the light hum of the air conditioning can’t conceal the yawns that falter from his lips every now and then.

through half-lidded eyes, he watches you huff one more time during your battle with your phone. jay may be sleepy, but he hasn’t breached the line between reality and fantasy. how could he when you’re so eager to show him something?

apparently you’d finally taken the near-full storage warning seriously and begun your trip down memory lane. it wasn’t the easiest task to fulfill, but for the integrity of your phone’s health (and future mementos that you were definitely going to earn), it was about time. besides, it’d brought you back to this elusive picture—that had sunk into the trenches of your gallery once more because you forgot that making a folder or saving it in favorites exist—that jay was just a little eager to see.

the bespectacled male’s frames hang on the precipice right when you exclaim, “here, finally found it!”

it’s almost comical how quickly he sits up the moment the announcement comes. he doesn’t like the taste of caffeine during hours like this, yet he absorbs the side effects of your excitement so eagerly. of course, he’ll always defend himself by claiming the circumstances are different—you’re different.

shuffling closer until he can feel your warmth—and smell your apple-cinnamon scented fabric softener—pressed next to him, he looks down at your phone screen. truthfully, and with little thoughts he had during the passing hour, he’d expected to see a picture of from a special occasion, your friends and family. if he had to stretch a little, perhaps a picture of your ex who triggered some sirens in his mind.

(only god, and his other best friends, know how relieved he was to learn that his radar weren’t far off. that, and you had believed him even when he himself was doubting his own instincts. he saved you a chapter of migraines and arguments.)

but no, he was actually staring at himself. well, his past self, but still him—park jay. your partner in crime, go-to consultant for a variety of matters (specializing in both look and cook books), best friend for this life and the following ones.

and he doesn’t even try to hide his confusion. “that’s.. me.”

“obviously,” you laugh, unintentionally drawing more invisible question marks over his head. “see, that’s one of the ways i knew you had fallen so deep into that conversation. i’d also forgotten to turn off the shutter sound at the time, but you didn’t flinch.”

as intently as he stares at the photo, jay can’t recall this moment in particular. he still owns that denim jacket, but it’s been a while since he’s seen those natural mocha tresses. his jaw’s a little sharper, but his eyes retain that soft edge you claim he possesses. with so many contrasts, it throws him off the timeline. but it’s not like he keeps track of things he himself says anyway, so he doubts he’ll remember without a refresher.

“wait, pause right there.. what was i talking about?”

“i can’t remember either.”

..that felt like the antonym of what he was looking for.

obviously amused by jay’s bewildered expression, you decide to throw him a stem. “i don’t think i was even part of the conversation in the first place. we were at jake’s birthday party, yet you, him, and sunghoon seemed to forget about that since the three of you were mostly glued to the living room. if heeseung hadn’t called you guys over so the birthday boy could blow out the candles, we would have cut the cake already.”

oh that; jay can remember that part. it’s not that he has favorites you’re his number one but when he and his fellow liner friends land in the same space and time, they’re bound to talk as if they haven’t seen each other in years. ironic, since he’s pretty sure they were just chatting on discord about their genshin pulls a few hours before the party, but he digresses.

“right, but still, what’s up with this picture? was it just a random snap for your photo dump?” he asks, more curious than anything else; definitely more than tired.

“i just really liked how passionate you seemed to be in that moment. you were so.. expressive, i guess? like, even if i had no idea what you were talking about, i could tell that it meant a lot to you. and then you’d do these small gestures to paint a more clear picture for the two, even add some silly sound effects to the moves. our other friends would smile or even chuckle over how enthusiastic you sounded before returning to their conversations, whereas i was pretty much stuck watching you go on and on.”

“sounds like i had you wrapped around my finger then.” he jests, lighthearted words complemented by the slight curve of his rosy lips.

you play along; rolling your eyes like it hurt to admit it. “i mean you’re not that far off. god, i almost fell in love with you then.”

god, he wish you had.

🎐 .. @stealanity @strxwberry-skiess @sohnric @sanaxo-o + send an ask to be added!

QUAISSANTS, 2024. do not steal or else i bite.

[absentia-if]

I'm looking for more interactive fiction games to play and I was wondering if you have any particular favourites?

I’m a hermit when it comes to the community as a whole— mainly staying in my own little corner, but I have been able to meet some amazing Author’s during my stay.

Citadel by @bouncyballcitadel is an absolutely amazing medical drama IF. An amazing cast of characters, both romance and non-romance, and real life experiences, and knowledge, fueling the writing in such a way that makes you feel extremely connected to the plot and the MC. I highly recommend it.

An Affair of the Heart by @doriana-gray-games is another amazing IF that I strongly recommend. Not only because I absolutely adore Dori, the sweetest of sweethearts, but she makes the world of Sherlock Holmes come to life in such a way that I can’t even truly describe— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would be proud of her, I can tell you that much.

Novaturient by @kalorphic is an amazing spy IF that has a lovely cast of characters. It’s not as serious, or it’s not supposed to be as serious, as some of the other titles that I’ve mentioned, but it’s such a fun time all the same— it doesn’t have too much in the form of a demo, as of yet, but I think you’ll enjoy getting to know the cast on Ella’s blog all the same. (She also has another blog @ellawrites-if that I think you should check out too.)

Next in Line by @nextinline-if has been a fun read since I’ve started it. Not to mention Vi is an absolute delight to speak with. You have a little bit of everything when it comes to the romances, and who doesn’t love being royalty too? I think you’ll have a grand time with the story, and getting to know everything you’d wish to know about it, as I can’t recommend it enough.

Abyssal by @theabyssal is a great game with an amazing premise— playing Death itself ticking a lot of boxes for a variety of people. It’s quite angsty, as I feel like I should warn you, but the writing is immaculate and you’ll be pulled into the inner workings of a world that you have to find a place in once more. Plus, the ROs are absolutely amazing too.

A World Without You by @jaunefleurwrites has been an amazing read. It deals with the realities of death while still being alive, an ever growing entity that always looms over us all, but it’s still an enjoyable read even if it does have a sadder undertone. I highly recommend it (plus Damin is a sweetheart).

The King’s Hound by @the-kingshound is an Arthurian IF that I think you’ll find yourself drawn to. It has found family written all over it, with tinges of angst and drama strewn within, that I think you’ll enjoy. It’s an amazing story, with an amazing cast, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Past Imperfect by @past-imperfect-if is an IF with only a singular RO, that’s semi-customizable, and only has prologue released so far, but I strongly implore you to check it out as I think you’ll enjoy the premise of it. (Plus, my friend is the main creator for it and I know she’ll absolutely love to have someone as wonderful as you check out her story.)

Kingdoms and Empires by @kingdoms-and-empires is an amazing high fantasy game that I think you’ll enjoy. It has a wonderful world, that seems dynamic around the MC, with an amazing cast of characters that I think you’ll find yourself growing attached to. If you enjoy fantasy, being a royal, and wish to be along for a long ride? This story is definitely for you.

The Scars I Live With by @thescarsilivewith-if is also an amazing premise that I absolutely adore. It doesn’t have a demo yet, but I think the cast of characters that have been introduced as well as the world building will be able to be just enough until one is released.

If you want more of my stories? I have three other main stories that I’m working on— even if they’re on a semi-hiatus as of now.

Heart of Flames is a dragon rider story where you take on the role of one of the newest dragon riders within Haven, and it expands across the world of Gallinia as a whole. @unforeseenflame

Scandal is based off the show of the very same name— Scandal (by Shonda Rhimes). It’s genderlocked female though, just want to warn you. @nightingale-interactive

Path of Fire is a dragon-shifter IF wherein the MC is the last of the Dracaryean and their journey in discovering what that truly means— not only for them but for Ioria as a whole. @eleanawrites

[iamallyetnotatall]

Here is my 2024 Secret Santa piece for the @super-secret-conspiracy exchange!!!

For my lovely giftee @mainstream-deviant -- I hope you enjoy this little slice of Deathshipping (they meet, they flirt, and it's fantasy, that's about the jist of it lol).

Happy holidays and to a wonerful 2025 💖

Read Below:

Human only settlements are so… quaint.

He’s barely lived in this town an hour before a neighbour is visiting and whispering rumours about a ‘big bad wolf’ living in the forest (which his home is next to, the neighbour helpfully points out).

Ryou, an overworked mage in need of some down time, had been recommended this rundown home by a trusted friend. He’d been reminded several times that it’s a fixer-upper but the people in town are very kind and maybe some manual labour will distract him from the stresses of hectically diverted catastrophes. Living on the forest’s edge had been a bonus; it’s a great place to find a good variety of potion ingredients and have some quiet. Blessed quiet.

This new knowledge of a wolf living in there doesn’t frighten him as the neighbour had clearly expected.

It does answer the question of why Ryou couldn’t sense anything magical going on in there despite its fairly large size; it’s fascinating that one sapient creature, a werewolf judging by the vague description, can keep all others away. He can’t even sense a wayward pixie and those things are everywhere. That must be one volatile wolf.

And yet the town lives. They whisper tall tales but never mention anyone being eaten or going missing, as one might expect from such stories. This carnivorous wolf must have a penchant for non-sapient animals, not entirely unusual for their species, but still something of note considering the things Ryou hears of it.

The most unsurprising thing in this entire situation is Ryou’s ability to end up in the midst of this.

He’s the mage who met, befriended, then hid away from the world the last living kraken because he thought fishing would be his key to relaxation. One werewolf is no trouble.

~o~o~o~

Ryou dons his bright red hood, the boldest piece he owns, and walks into the forest with an overstuffed wicker basket hung over his inner elbow. He could have used a scrying spell to find this mysterious wolf, but had opted for an old fashioned hunt. Or, in this case, make himself the easiest prey possible. A paranoid predator might assume a trap and ignore him altogether, but that’s a risk he’s willing to take. He has a backup plan (or four) if he needs it.

He walks aimlessly. He doesn’t want to get too far; it would be exactly like him to walk out until he’s tired then realize he needs to do that same path back. He’s not making that mistake a second time. This year.

It’s a beautiful forest; it’s both a shame and a blessing that the townsfolk are so scared of it. It’s untouched by sapient selfishness and carries the notable prints and markings of the wildlife that call this place their home. The werewolf doesn’t litter — Ryou likes them already.

“Are you stupid or suicidal?”

“Is none of the above an option?”

Ryou retorts before he even spots him. He has to turn to find the source of the voice and finds the young man leaning against a tree, arms crossed over his chest in forced nonchalance. Ryou’s eyes rake over him, taking in the sight.

His face is twisted into a nasty scowl that would trigger a fight or flight response on actual prey, which Ryou thankfully isn’t. He’s physically fit, made extra obvious by his lack of shirt. His simple woollen pants are cut at the ankles and his feet are bare and muddy. Most striking are his piercing violet eyes and wild blonde hair. Ryou’s fingers itch to pick out the leaves and twigs stuck in it.

He nudges a vision spell over his eyes and spots the silvery shine to the man’s eyes, proof of his inner beast. This is the one.

“You smell like magic. What do you want?”

“I’m Ryou. I’m your new neighbour and came by to say hello! I bought the cute little cottage by the forest that-a-way.” He points over his shoulder.

“How’d you get swindled into buying that death trap? The old owner left ‘cause part of the roof caved in.”

“Nothing a bit of hard work can’t fix. Here, this is for you.” Ryou approaches and holds out the basket. The young man doesn’t take it. Ryou shakes it, as if tempting a toddler, but he still doesn’t move. “I put together a meat selection for you as a little gift. I didn’t know your favourites and the people in town are far too terrified of you to know anything about you, so I went with a bit of everything. Please take it, you have my word as a mage that this is a gift with no strings attached.”

“Your word means shit to me.”

“I can weave it as a spell if you—”

“This is my home. If you want anything out of here for your magic bullshit you better think again. You get one warning. If you come back here again I’ll eat you. Got it?”

“The people in town said you were a bit hostile. Did you know they refer to you as a ‘big bad wolf’? As if you act like some sort of monster, but I find it very interesting that no one’s ever been hurt and that you’ve made such an effort to keep this forest free of other sapient beings, including anyone that could cause trouble for the people in town. I don’t even sense one wayward mischievous pixie… a hard task for anybody.”

“Maybe I should eat you now.” He snarls. There��s that inner wolf. So gruff. And dashing.

Ryou’s arm is getting tired from holding up the basket, but he won’t back down.

“You look really strong, do you patrol the forest a lot? I think it’s really sweet that you keep the town safe. What’s your name?”

“You can call me ‘big bad wolf’ like everyone else. Now get out.” He turns to leave.

“Wait! Please!”

A growl forms in the back of his throat, but he turns back around. If he were in his wolf shape Ryou imagines his hackles would be raised and his teeth bared. He’s incredibly distrustful and private, but Ryou is stubborn.

“I’m sorry. Maybe we got off on the wrong foot. I just moved here from Domino City where I worked as a mage. After one disaster too many I decided I needed a break and this seemed like a nice place. I’m only here to relax and maybe make some friends. I have no ulterior motives. I’m only here for some hard-earned peace and quiet, which I think is also why you’re here, right?”

“Mm. Domino City, huh? I guess that’s why you’re not scared of me like they are,” he says, referring to the townsfolk, “you’ve seen bigger and badder monsters than a guy like me.”

“Oh, you’re plenty big and bad,” Ryou’s gaze once again roams up and down to take him in, “but that’s about right. You’re obviously not interested in human meat, so I don’t see any reason we can’t get to know each other.”

“Aren’t mages supposed to be smart?”

“That’s a misconception; we’re all actually very stupid and make terrible life choices. That’s the only way someone would be willing to study one discipline for a decade to earn a meaningless title.”

That earns a chuckle from the werewolf, and he relaxes that little bit.

“What did you get roped into studying?”

“White magic with a proficiency in healing, though don’t go spreading that around. People seem to think that equates to miracles, but alas, I can’t reattach a head to a body and make it all work the way it did before.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if ever my head and body come apart.”

“Thank you. Will you please take the basket? It’s really heavy and I’m but a poor weakly mage.” Ryou wiggles the basket for emphasis and hopes his smile comes across as cute.

“For fuck — fine.”

The weight is finally gone and the subtle quivering in his arm isn’t for the sake of dramatics. Some manual labour really will do him well.

“Thank you! So. What’s your name? Not that ‘big bad wolf’ doesn’t have its own charm, but… I think we’re a little closer than that at this point, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Amir, and you’re not getting this stupid basket back.”

“I hope you make good use of it.”

Amir huffs. He turns and walks away without another word or even a wave goodbye.

“Bye, Amir! It was nice meeting you!” Ryou cheerfully calls after him.

The warm fluttering of butterflies in his stomach isn’t a new feeling, but it’s been a while since he’s had the time to sit and bask in it and maybe actually pursue it. A gorgeous standoffish and possibly dangerous werewolf living in his backyard? This is so exciting! And everyone says being a mage is dull — there’s no such thing for Ryou.

He’s going to love it here.

[sundrop-writes]

Dreaming Of You

Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader

Part One: The Psychic and The Tiger

Summary:

You and Gar have been best friends for a long time. Nothing could disrupt the harmony of such a perfect friendship.

Nothing except maybe... your usually predictable powers going haywire and somehow showing you all of his heated daydreams about you. But he couldn't possibly have romantic feelings for you. He couldn't possibly want anything more than your close platonic friendship and the occasional steamy fantasy. Right?

Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader. Best Friends to Lovers. Smut and (Slight) Angst. Set during Season 2.

Word Count: 13,100

DC Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist

THIS IS A RE-POST. This is a fic from my old blog (a blog that was shadowbanned, forcing me to move). This fic is not stolen, it is completely mine, and I am just re-posting it to help people find my new blog, and to make my masterlist complete when I post new fics for this fandom.

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: some emotional angst (on the basis of mutual angst but they’re both deep in denial), accidental invasion of someone’s privacy (by accidentally reading their mind), some light canon violence (practice sparring/practice fighting), the reader character is disabled - the reader character is 100% mute, the reader character suffered with tumors that were partially cured by Doctor Caulder’s serum, the reader character suffers from migraines and seizures due to remaining brain tumors, the reader character has the ability to read minds, the reader character uses ASL because she is mute, mentions of the reader character having insomnia/difficulty sleeping, mentions of Rachel having a one-sided crush on Gar, the reader is described to exercise a lot and be physically fit but I don’t allot that to a certain body type (I am not excluding her from being fat when I write this), in a lot of passages - the reader is implied to be fat actually, mentions of the reader masturbating, a wholesome family game night that doesn’t really belong in a smut fic lmao, somewhat graphic descriptions of vomit (from illness) (it only occurs in one short section of the fic), passing mentions of disordered eating - but not due to poor body image or mental illness more in the form of restrictions on ‘junk food’ and not eating properly at meal times, dream sequences involving sex - hair-pulling, groping, biting, making out, (implied) shower sex, dirty talk, praise kink, penis in vagina sex (unprotected), mind fucking (but not in the way that you think - sharing sex with someone while having a sexual connection). All of the smut/sex in this chapter is of the day dream variety, but it is still described in graphic/detailed ways. I believe that is everything. 

A/N: I find it so ironic that this was freshly reposted on my other blog when I got shadowbanned. So let's try this again, shall we? At least this is beautifully edited and updated for your eyes. I think this is literally the perfect version of this fic with the new additional scenes. So if this is your first time reading it, please enjoy, and if you have read it before, I hope you can enjoy it again. And because I am back in my Titans era again - definitely stick around for more of my Gar bullshit. I love him with my whole heart, and there will definitely be more Gar stuff from me.

...

Mind reading is most definitely not what people think it is. 

It’s not at all how movies portray it to be. And it’s definitely not how you imagine it to be when you think about having the ability to access someone’s private thoughts. 

To this day, you still remembered when Gar showed you the British television show Misfits, and you couldn’t help but laugh at the way the character’s mind reading power was portrayed. 

To most of Hollywood, it’s as if a person’s thoughts were a simple string of words laid out in their head, a simple script being read in their voice. As if you can accidentally overhear someone thinking about a certain topic, like one overhears a conversation. 

In reality, it was vastly different for you. 

There was no easy way to explain it, to describe the way it felt to enter the complex vastness of the human mind, but you often tried to put it into words. For one, you were thankful that it took you concentration and intent to use your powers. You never accidentally overheard someone’s thoughts the way a person can hear voices or loud music, or a television in the next room. It kept you from a lot of awkward situations. And most importantly to you, it kept you from barreling into a person’s most private space - the sacred stronghold of their mind - unless it was deemed completely necessary. 

From what you had realized, it required you making eye contact with the person in order for you to enter someone’s mind. 

“Ah yes. The eyes are the window to the soul, after all.” Doctor Caulder had remarked when he had discovered this about your powers. 

Ironic. Thematic, actually, considering that his serum had cured you of a physical blindness. One caused by a brain tumor that any doctor was too afraid to operate on in order to remove. Doctor Caulder liked to credit himself and his serum with giving you the gift of ‘a greater sight’, one that allowed you to peer deep inside others. A gift that he said allowed you to help people. 

To you, though, more often than not, it just felt like invading people’s privacy. And that was something you definitely didn’t enjoy - whether it was ‘helping’ people or not. 

Something you had learned during the minimal amount of time you had used your powers: people can be divided into two types of thinkers. That you found out very quickly. 

The first type are people whose thoughts come in the form of rich, visual landscapes. People who show off their thoughts almost purely with visuals, imagining things that might happen, remembering things that already have in vivid detail. Those people are typically the easiest to navigate, in your experience - but their memories can be the most painful and vivid if you go too deep. 

The second type are people whose thoughts come more in the form of narration - a voice inside their head speaking about their intentions or the information pumping through their mind. 

Although, unlike what most people would think, that voice is not usually their own. 

Most times it is the voice of a mentor or parent, someone who guided and built their thoughts from childhood, someone whose voice sounds firm and thoughtful in their mind. Or sometimes it could even be the voice of a TV character or a radio host, because listening to that piece of media so often caused that voice to clone in their mind and become stuck there accidentally. 

Entering the mind of someone like this can be tricky - their thoughts are difficult to navigate, because they are hard to grasp and become tangible. 

Occasionally you come across someone with a more unique mental landscape, someone in emotional turmoil or someone who simply never had a linear train of thought to begin with. Entering the mind of someone like this is more like a thousand screaming voices and flashing lights, all at once. Incredibly difficult to decipher, a sensory overload to take in.  

But those are only surface level thoughts. Your powers gave you the ability to dive deep into the cave of someone’s mind, to explore the winding halls of their memories, their subconscious. To feel their emotions, to help them work through their traumas, their pain. If they allowed you to delve that deep. Only if they invited you in. 

More often than not, you simply preferred to stay the hell out of other people’s minds. To simply give them the privacy they were owed. 

Which is why when it happened - when your powers started slipping out of your control on that stupid fucking day - you hated it more than you could be proud of it. Even if the information you discovered cemented a dream into reality that you’d been having since the day you met Garfield Logan. 

It had been a Saturday morning like any other. 

Well, one as routine as to be expected when living the Titans lifestyle. 

Moving into the Tower was actually nice to attempt to put down roots considering what you had been through over the past year or so. When you originally uprooted your life in Covington, Ohio to follow Gar, you certainly hadn’t expected the wild path he would lead you on. A path that would lead to you getting kidnapped by a doomsday cult and tortured, being lured to a house in the middle of nowhere and mentally tortured some more. All in all leaving that house with absolutely no sense of direction in your life, mentally scarred and broken. 

But you never blamed Gar for getting you into trouble. In fact, you were glad to be there to support him through everything that had happened. 

Gar was your best friend, your person, and you would have followed him anywhere. 

So naturally when he moved into the newly reopened Titans Tower, so did you. Dick didn’t fully understand the extent of your abilities, because in order to show people, you had to violate their privacy, and it wasn’t always something you were keen on doing. He simply trusted Gar at his word that you were more than capable of becoming a Titan. 

That blind faith Dick had put in you, backed by Gar’s word, that heavily motivated you to train hard in all other areas to ensure that Dick knew Gar could be trusted. To pull through on that promise and show your worth. 

That’s why you were up so early that morning. You liked to get a head start on things. You liked to be up before everyone else to prove that you were working hard on your training, working hard on studying the things that Dick wanted you to know. 

At least, those were the excuses you had prepared if anyone asked. Or the things you told yourself to escape the reality of it - to say that you were using your time wisely these days. 

Truthfully, you were never very good with sleeping. 

Between your chronic headaches, pain that left intense aches down your neck and spine, and the awful nausea that it plagued you with, and the strange dreams that your powers seemed to be paired with, you didn’t often get much sleep. 

You were still figuring out how your incredibly strange dreams coincided with your ability to breach other people’s private thoughts. But you guessed that it was simply part of that whole ‘greater sight’ thing. Especially considering that those dreams seemed to depict the future in some way. 

You often found your sleep disrupted by these dreams - visions of death or violence or even strange faces you had never seen before. And more often than not, you decided to pursue more productive activities than tossing and turning in your sheets until your alarm rang. 

Strangely enough, one of the very first dreams you’d had after being injected with the serum had been a strange setting where you were garbed in a giant, poofy white wedding dress, getting married to a large green tiger who wore a black bowtie among his bright green fur. At the time, you had genuinely convinced yourself that it was just a strange fever dream caused by the serum. Up until you’d met Gar, and something in the pit of your stomach told you that he was the green tiger in question. 

But you had never told anyone about that dream, and probably never would.

It’s something that was very far from your mind as you enjoyed breakfast early that morning. 

Dick usually let everyone ‘sleep in’ on Saturdays - as much as Jason complained that sleeping until eight was not a luxury, he and the others usually still took advantage of it. But you were up long before sunrise on that day. 

You were sitting at the kitchen island, absentmindedly snacking on some dry cereal with your journal open in front of you. You were sketching a picture of something you had seen in one of your dreams. A girl with waves of silver hair and eyepatch that you didn’t recognize, but had a gut feeling was important somehow. You glanced up at the sound of footsteps coming into the room, and found yourself surprised but happy to see that it was Gar. 

He was clearly still half asleep, his eyes barely open. He wore plaid pajama pants and a green pullover hoodie, hair still adorably messy and uncombed. He looked so utterly soft and cuddly, something that made those undeniable butterflies stir in the pit of your stomach. 

When you looked over at the clock attached to the stove, it was barely five-thirty in the morning. The sun was just kissing the sky orange to your right, casting a warm orange glow across the entire room through the many tall windows. You were almost shocked that anything other than Dick’s fist hammering on Gar’s door had gotten him out of bed this early. 

“Morning.” He grunted at you as he tiredly stumbled toward the fridge. He opened it with haste and grabbed the carton of orange juice. 

Of course. He wanted a snack. 

He uncapped it and gulped it with enthusiasm, not bothering to get a glass or even close the refrigerator door. The sharp light of the halogen bulbs and the cool air pouring from the appliance almost hurt you, your overly sensitive eyes and skin picking up on the sensations more potently in the soft morning light of the room. 

Gar turned around, the carton still poised to his lips. He took large swigs that made his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, and he kicked the fridge door shut behind him as he finally put the carton down on the counter, exhaling a large, nasty burp. He looked at you with a sleepy smile, almost making you mad with how cute he could be after doing something like that. 

You were about to comment on the disgusting nature of his habits when something strange happened - something that had never happened to you before. 

You locked eyes with him, and with absolutely no intention or purpose on your part, you were struck with a flood of his thoughts. A vision, a vivid painting brought to life by his imagination. 

It was a distinct, full picture of the two of you. 

He had you pressed against the kitchen island, his hands commanding and warm on your hips, like they belonged there. His body was firm against yours, tightly pressed against you as if trying to spite the clothes you wore - and his lips were on yours in a demanding kiss. It was entirely passionate, downright hungry. He left gentle nips on your bottom lip as you ran your hands through his sleep mussed hair, your gentle tug on it forcing a moan from his throat, his tongue pressing into- 

A gentle gasp coiled in the back of your throat as you were shocked back to reality, finally able to force yourself out of his mind. 

You had no idea how the accidental violation had even occurred in the first place, but to stay there and indulge in it would only be continuing to do him a great injustice. When you dared to let your eyes flicker back to his face, he was staring at you with a strange look - his brow slightly furrowed, worry dancing across his mouth. Clearly he wanted to ask you what was wrong. You hadn’t greeted him or said ‘good morning’ in any sort of fashion yet, and now you were just sitting there, frozen on your stool, every inch of your body tight as ice at what you had just seen. 

“Did you want some?” He asked, picking up the orange juice carton and holding it out to you. 

It was adorably ignorant of him - to think the strange look that had struck your face was over some dispute about orange juice. That you were annoyed because he wasn’t sharing well enough. You simply shook your head in the negative and began gathering your things as quickly as possible, trapping your pencil between the pages of your notebook as you scrambled to get out of his sight. 

You needed time to think. 

You had no idea what the hell had just happened, but you sure wanted to avoid him until you could figure it out. Until you could get it under control. You raised your hand and signed something about showering to him. But your movements were quick and sloppy and you didn’t look at him for confirmation that he understood before you barreled out of the room. You were too eager to hide in your bedroom until you were absolutely forced to see him again. 

… 

It’s not like you hadn’t thought about it before. 

You had thought about it a lot, actually. 

But he had been far too good a friend for you to ever risk losing that friendship over your stupid lust - over some stupid schoolgirl crush that you were sure would go away. And the whole uprooting your life and having a demon from another dimension invade your mind and show you the darkest parts of yourself thing definitely made you put your crush for Gar on the back burner. 

It’s not like you were blind to how entirely perfect Gar was. He was handsome, he was cute - so entirely adorable in his boyish looks and his sweet smile. So cute and excitable, with the way he could be bashful, yet confident at the same time when spurting out random facts about video games or going on and on about seemingly any subject that excited him. And you quickly realized that he had more than boyish charms the first time you had seen him shirtless - accidentally caught him changing when living together at Caulder House - and you saw his gorgeous physique on display. 

You had been smitten with Gar since the very first moment you had met him, actually.

Back then your crush was something that should have been glaringly obvious to him. You could barely maintain eye contact with him within the first few days of knowing him, you were always so flustered around him. That, on top of the playful teasing of your housemates, wondering when the two of you were finally going to admit that unspoken thing you had going on. 

But when the two of you left Caulder House and set out to explore the world - it had remained unspoken. 

If Gar had known about your crush on him, it had never affected the way he treated you. Your friendship grew so strong so quickly, and you never wanted to lose that. You never wanted to lose him. So you settled for platonic couch cuddles and late night multiplayer and him letting you sleep in his bed whenever you got a bad migraine. 

And then Rachel came along. And you saw the way he looked at her, the way she looked at him. And even though you thought you had probably lost any chance of ever being with him the way you had dreamed of - you still packed your bag and squeezed into the back of Dick’s Porsche with him when he begged for you to come. 

Naturally, you were spinning at the revelation that apparently, he had thought of you the same way you thought of him. You almost wanted to convince yourself that it had been a mistake. That it had just been a fantasy you had cooked up inside your own mind. It’s not like you didn’t have many, many fantasies about Gar running around in there. 

But no. You knew distinctly what it felt like to use your powers. Being inside the private cave of someone else’s mind - even touching the surface of its depths is a unique experience. And doing it by mistake feels no different than doing it on purpose. 

You had no clue what had caused your powers to go off by mistake, but you definitely knew the feeling of using them. 

Those were most definitely Gar’s thoughts that had invaded your mind. Gar’s thoughts about kissing you, handling you with such intense passion. Your skin startled to crawl with a unique heat as you remembered the vision so vividly. You heaved a great sigh as you flung yourself backward onto your bed. You gazed over at the clock. It was almost time for training. You wouldn’t be able to hide from Gar for much longer. 

…  

You were just glad that training that day consisted of blindfolded sparring. 

Dick seemed very surprised when you volunteered to go first after he introduced the unorthodox exercise. But to you, it was a simple logic that had you eagerly chopping at the bit to get a piece of cloth covering your eyes. If you were blindfolded, there was no chance of you catching Gar’s eye. Or anyone’s for that matter. 

You had no idea if your powers were simply spinning out of control, or if it was an unintentional emotional reaction triggered by Gar’s presence. You weren’t quite sure which was worse. If it was a case of your powers going rogue, growing stronger somehow, then perhaps you’d have to start wearing a blindfold all the time. 

If it was specifically something with Gar, then… maybe that was worse. It probably signaled something deeper with you. Your feelings for him clawing at your unconscious, begging to be spilled to the open air. Which you really weren’t eager to let happen anytime soon. 

You were almost relieved when Dick paired you off with Jason, saying that your skill set ‘complimented’ his. He explained that he wanted the two of you to try the blindfolding exercise together while he quizzed Gar and Rachel on logic puzzles in the other room. At least Gar would be required to be away from you for a while, and you’d have a very slim chance of catching Jason’s eyes. You didn’t want to know what kind of things he was thinking, what secrets he had. Definitely not. 

As the two of you sparred, you were entirely unfocused, your thoughts swimming. 

Jason caught you off guard, and easily swept you off your feet completely as he struck you hard in the ankle with the wooden practice sword he was wielding. You grunted gently as you hit the floor, and rolled over on your back, defeated. You reluctantly removed the blindfold as you caught your breath, and saw him standing above you, offering you a hand to help you up. As you blinked against the sharp light meeting your eyes, you accidentally caught his gaze, making direct, certain eye contact with him.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened. You breathed a small sigh of relief. 

“You okay, Fancy Hands?” He asked, leaning down so his helping hand was closer to you. 

It was a nickname he had affectionately given you the first time he’d seen you use ASL when you had met - back at the safe house in Chicago. Back when Jason had used Dick’s tracker to find him and you all met the surprise second Robin for the first time. 

At the time, you had been surprised to find out that Jason actually knew quite a few signs because one of the kids he’d been in foster care with had been deaf. You had explained to him that your hearing was perfectly fine - your mutism was because of a surgery during your childhood that had removed a tumor from your throat and had left your vocal cords damaged. It was something that had occurred long before your life had become about powers, a green tiger, and one too many Robins to count. 

In the present, you were simply thankful that your powers didn’t seem to act up with him. 

In response to his question, you nodded, taking his hand. 

He helped you to your feet quickly, and you found your own practice sword where it had fallen. You then replaced your blindfold once again. Though it was slightly troubling to know that this sudden shift in your powers only seemed to be triggered by Gar - that knowledge did help you focus a bit more on the lesson. 

As you focused, you blocked two of Jason’s hits with your sword and landed a swift, sharp hit somewhere on him. 

“Ow!” He whined. “Take it easy, Fancy Hands, this is only supposed to be practice.” 

You giggled, smiling to yourself. 

… 

It had been a few days since then. 

And you had been strategically avoiding Gar. 

At least, avoiding him as much as you could without arousing major suspicion. It was a pretty large living space, and with only four other people in it, it was next to impossible to come up with excuses to avoid him entirely. He was your best friend, after all. If you just quit spending time with him entirely, that would cause him to ask way too many questions. And you definitely couldn’t give him the answers to any of those questions. 

You had made a hard agreement shortly after you had met him - you promised that you would never use your powers on him without his explicit permission unless it was some kind of emergency. A life or death situation. You both easily agree that his brain was his brain, and like every other person on the planet, it was his private sanctuary. He was entitled to that privacy. He deserved that much. Everyone did. That’s why you always tried to avoid using your powers at all costs. 

You didn’t want to explain to him that you had accidentally broken your promise - that you had seen some of his most private thoughts. On top of that, it was like a giant tease toward your feelings for him. Feelings you shouldn’t even have for your best friend. 

So in the meantime, while you were trying to figure out how to reign in your powers and stop from having another freak accident like the one in the kitchen, you stuck to what you considered ‘safe’ activities with Gar. Things the two of you could do together that would absolutely minimize eye contact between the two of you. 

Things like: studying Dick’s allotted mandatory reading material, where your eyes would be safely glued to the pages of a book. Playing video games with him, where your eyes would have to be on the screen. And you always made sure you sat next to him at the dinner table, where your eyes would be parallel to his, or stayed safely on your dinner plate. 

You had been doing just fine until another accident happened. 

Of course, it happened because of factors you hadn’t taken into account. 

You had been up late in the training room, something you did often. Because of your hesitance to use your powers, you liked to exercise often to be in peak physical condition in case fighting was ever necessary on your behalf. 

On top of that, you and Jason had somewhat of a silent rivalry going. You had kicked his ass quite a few times during training sessions, and though he would never say it, he liked how you kept him on his toes. So now you were always trying to quietly outdo the other. Something you were caught up in thinking about as you floated down the hallway toward the bathroom on light feet, your toiletry bag in hand, hoping Jason hadn’t beaten you to the shower. 

What you were not at all expecting, was to collide heavily with a half-naked, still wet from the shower Gar. With neither of you paying attention to where you were going, you smacked into each other at a fair speed, him waltzing out of the bathroom and straight into you. Your toiletry bag went flying, and with the zipper undone, your products scattered out across the floor. 

“Shit, oh my god, I’m sorry.” Gar quickly apologized, being the entirely sweet person that he was. 

You both leaned down in unison and began picking up the mess of bottles and other products. You forced yourself to keep your eyes steadily on the floor, not daring to look toward his face, no matter how much you missed his sweet smile and those big brown eyes looking back at you. You couldn’t risk it, not if you would make that unintentional invasion of his privacy once again. 

Gar’s chest twinged with sour notes as you avoided his gaze. Usually, you were always so pleased to be around him. He thought that he had done something wrong. Something grander that he had somehow failed to perceive. 

“I guess I better watch where I’m going, huh?” He chuckled, trying to make conversation with you. 

Truthfully, he just wanted a reaction out of you - he needed to see your smile like wilting plants needed rain. He worried that he wasn’t going to get it anytime soon. 

You kept your eyes glued to the floor, making it an exercise in self-discipline. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see his dripping wet leg and the edge of the fluffy, white towel he was wearing. You knew he was shirtless and it was far too tempting to look. 

When your hand went for the bottle of conditioner at the same time as his - you accidentally brushed over each other. You felt a unique heat creeping up your spine. Like magnets, like a plant growing toward the sun - like any natural reaction that self discipline can’t be stopped - your eyes flickered up and met with his. 

And once again, you became trapped in the depths of his dangerous gaze. 

You were sucked into his mind before you could stop it. In a millisecond, all of your senses became consumed by another vision of his imagining. 

You were surprised to find that it was a scene of you, alone. 

It was a way you had never viewed yourself before; getting the chance to see yourself through someone else’s eyes, even if it was only imaginary, was quite a strange sensation. 

The scene was an outside perspective of yourself showering, as if someone was staring at you through the clear glass door. You had to admit that it was positively erotic. The way the bubbles cascaded down your skin, the way your hands rubbed your flesh as you washed yourself. The dream you stopped the smooth lathering partway to grab and grope at your thighs and breasts, moaning lightly under your breath as you did so. 

You had never thought you could be so… dreamy. 

You didn’t remain alone in the shower for long, though. 

As if out of nowhere, Gar appeared behind you, his naked body almost eclipsed by yours, save for his delightful broad shoulders and his head as it poked out around yours. You had never seen a more appealing sight in your life. His gorgeous face with wet hair stuck to his forehead, the grin that came across his cheeks as he looked at you. His arms came to wrap around your waist as he gently brushed a loofa across your stomach. He began kissing along your shoulder, licking his tongue across your neck and boldly moaning at the taste of your skin-

You forcefully pulled yourself from the vision. As you rocketed back to reality, it was like having ice water thrown down your back. 

The surrounding warmth of the imaginary shower was gone, and you were once again in the cool night air of the hallway. You gazed across Gar’s face, taking in the wide-eyed, clueless expression he wore. He almost looked worried for you, wondering why you had spaced out like that. He had absolutely no idea of what you had just seen. 

You snatched the bottle of conditioner out from underneath his palm and shoved it into your bag. Miraculously, you stood up on shaking legs, turning around and going to escape back to your room. 

“Didn’t you wanna use the shower?” Gar called after you quietly. 

Right. Your shower. 

You whipped back around, nodding at him in passing - but you kept your eyes locked on the floor as you sped by him. You practically ran into the bathroom before he could make any comments about your strange behavior. 

You shut and locked the bathroom door behind you, sealing yourself in the smothering heat and steam that he had left behind. When you glanced over at the mirror and saw that he had been drawing funny faces in the condensation - something that was so terribly Gar it almost hurt - you felt even worse about violating his privacy. Even if it was an accident. 

You tried to let the guilt go as you scrubbed away at your body. You told yourself that it wasn’t your fault. 

Eventually, you found yourself only reminded of his steamy fantasy as the bubbles ran across your skin. You had never felt sexier, never felt more attractive in your entire life than you did in his eyes, in his imagining of you completely naked. 

The biggest reason that it boosted your confidence? His mental image of you was so strangely honest. 

In his dream, you weren’t cartoonish or overdone by his lust. Even though he had never seen you naked before, your breasts weren’t ballooned out or perkier than they should have been. There wasn’t a great amount of fat trimmed from your body, as if he desired you to be thinner than you were. It was so gratefully you - but it was a hot, sexy, fantastic version of you. A version that he apparently wanted to have shower sex with. 

The very thought had you pulling down the extendable shower head and holding it between your legs, getting off to the way Gar thought of you. It was perfect - until Jason’s banging on the bathroom door, complaining that you had been taking too long, interrupted you. 

… 

Gar’s hands were all over you. 

It left you absolutely breathless, giving you no room to escape the pleasure he was delivering. He had turned you into a quivering, moaning mess. His mouth was between your legs, on your neck, on your breasts. His perfect lips were hot on your own, trying to trap the indescribable sounds you were making for him. You were completely pliant to him, to his needs, a melted puddle of want under his ever giving hands. 

“God, you’re so fucking perfect.” He moaned into your ear, finally lining his cock up to your throbbing entrance, finally ready to give you what you needed most. “I can’t wait to watch you cum on my cock.” 

His dirty words only fueled the every growing desire that was mounting inside you. You keened out pathetically as he finally pushed inside you. His cock ignited you with a sharp electricity, filling you up so perfectly. 

You were shocked out of your strangely wonderful dream by a pounding on your bedroom door - Dick coming to wake you up for training. 

“Morning jog in twenty minutes.” He called out through your door, making you groan into your pillow. 

There wouldn’t even be enough time to relieve the hard painful throbbing between your legs before you had to get out of bed. 

As much as you loved the man who had so graciously taken you in and now acted as such an amazing mentor to you - you really hated Dick Grasyon sometimes. 

…  

Gar had been plaguing your dreams since you had discovered the kind of thoughts he had been having about you. Of course, he had been the subject of plenty of your daydreams - but this was so much stronger. He had invaded your subconscious and made a home for himself there. 

More intense than any fantasy you had ever cooked up yourself, every single time you closed your eyes - he was there. You could feel his lips on your skin, could feel his hands on you. It had become more difficult than usual to sleep, and when you did, you woke up with a light sheen of sweat covering you, your pussy soaked and throbbing, absolutely needy for him. 

You knew it would be wrong. It would absolutely be wrong if you acted on your feelings for Gar now, well-informed that he was attracted to you too. That he might want the same things as you. It was so undoubtedly wrong to take information you had discovered with your powers and use it for personal gain like this. 

But, on the other hand, you knew the only reason he was plaguing your mind so much - you had some hope that he felt the same way. That he returned your big, scary feelings. 

But that was the thing, wasn’t it? 

You couldn’t know for certain if he felt exactly the same way that you did. 

Yes, you had seen him imagining kissing you, imagining doing sexual things with you. You knew that he thought of you in an erotic way. But that only meant he wanted to fuck you. 

It certainly didn’t mean that he wanted to be seriously romantic with you or that he wanted a serious relationship. He also could have sexual fantasies about Jason swimming around in his head - ones that you hadn’t seen. 

Nothing about what you had seen said he was in love with you. So if you told him about your feelings for him unprompted, not only would you make yourself look like an idiot, but you would eventually have to tell him about the things you had accidentally seen. He would never forgive you for violating his privacy, and you would be heartbroken. 

Sometimes you really wished you could just be normal. 

… 

“Well, this is fucking stupid.” Jason griped, throwing himself down onto the couch with a heavy sigh. 

“Yeah, we all know that, Jason.” Rachel quickly agreed. “But if Dick comes back and doesn’t see us having Happy Bonding Board Game Fun Times, then he’ll make us run laps or balance plates on our heads again.” 

She proposed an easy argument in favor of shutting up and co-operating as she unpacked the many pieces of the board game that Dick had gotten you guys - Trivial Pursuit. Something ‘fun and educational’, he had explained. 

You laughed under your breath at Rachel’s comment. 

Dick wanted the four of you to spend more time ‘bonding as a team’. He had explained that one of the reasons the Old Titans worked so well together out in the field was because they did casual, friendly activities together as well as training together. He wanted this new team to be as strong as the old one. 

You thought maybe this sporadic encouragement of bonding had been brought on by how you had been acting. With your dreams growing more intense each night, you had been increasingly turning down Gar’s invitations to play video games together, or study together. You had even started making up excuses to take dinner into your room or skipping dinner altogether in favor of eating bowls of cereal when no one else was around. And you knew Dick had noticed. 

But you also knew that you weren’t the only one to blame. 

The whole ‘team bonding’ thing could have easily been prompted by Jason’s increased agitation with the living situation, his eagerness to leave you all behind and get back to Gotham. And the fact that Rachel, like you, now rarely came out of her room. 

This always left Gar in a strange situation where he was desperate for friendship but everyone pulled away from him, everyone wanted to isolate themselves but him. You felt increasingly guilty about it. You felt so bad for abandoning your best friend. But every time you looked at him, even without making that dangerous eye contact, heat began to rise in your face as flashes of his fantasies or your wicked dreams began popping into your mind. 

But now you were all being forced to spend time together. You couldn’t avoid it so easily. You knew there was no excuse you could cook up to get out of it. And like Rachel had said, you didn’t want yourself and the others to be plagued with some dumb punishment like running laps if you could just be playing a board game instead. 

All four of you were sitting around the small coffee table in the living room area of the open concept space, the fire pit sending warm waves over you as the dark sky went on boundlessly through the tall windows. The lamp above your heads and the city lights cast a warm glow over everything, creating a beautifully pleasant atmosphere that made it easy to ignore your problems. 

Dick was gone out on some ‘errands’, and made you all promise to play the game and spend some time together while he was gone. 

“I like board games.” Gar smiled, picking up one of the pieces and inspecting it. “Of course, I do prefer multiplayer online. But some old fashioned tabletop is good to throw in there every once and a while.” 

You smiled at Gar’s comment. He was so wonderfully nerdy. Undeniably one of the reasons you had developed feelings for him in the first place. 

You were seated beside him on the plush rug, crossed legged, your knee just barely brushing against his. It felt strangely normal to be like this, pretending like nothing odd had happened between you in the weeks past. You were enjoying the feeling, indulging in actually getting to hang out with your best friend without worrying about romantic feelings or any of the other bullshit. 

“Could you not be a total dork for like… five seconds?” Rachel quipped, raising an eyebrow at Gar. 

Gar threw the game piece at her, and it bounced off her chest before it disappeared somewhere on the floor, making her look for it. You laughed. 

“Ugh, this is so fucking stupid.” Jason groaned into a small throw pillow from the couch that he had pulled into his face. “I don’t want to play this dumb fucking game.” 

‘Are you afraid you’ll lose?’ You signed. 

Seeing as Rachel didn’t know that much ASL, and Jason wasn’t even looking at you, his face still covered by the pillow in his little tantrum, Gar interpreted for you. 

“Are you afraid you’re gonna lose?” He announced to the room in a tone ripe with sass. 

Rachel smiled at the challenge, looking over her shoulder to see how Jason would react. 

“What? No.” Jason snapped, sitting up and tossing the pillow behind him. “It’s just a stupid game. I’m sure there are far better things I could be spending my time doing.” 

‘Then play.’ You signed, making steady eye contact with Jason, challenging him. 

“Then why don’t you just play?” Gar spoke, adding a few more words. Not that you minded. You thought it was generous and sweet that he had rushed to learn ASL in the first few months of knowing you just so he could communicate better with you. It was one of the things that had made you fall for him so hard, so fast. 

Jason’s face was struck with the realization that you were the one challenging him, not Gar. His eyes flickered between the three of you,  and then he settled into a seat on the carpet beside Rachel. 

“Okay fine, how do you even play this stupid game?” He grumbled quietly, snatching the instructions from Rachel. 

‘Why don’t we make things interesting?’ You said, knowing you could aggravate Jason’s competitive side even more. 

And in the back of your mind, you were thinking about the fact that if you were too focused on winning the game, you wouldn’t be too focused on Gar. You wouldn’t be thinking about the fact that he had shifted closer to you, and his thigh was pressing more into yours, spreading a deadly heat across your skin under your clothes.

“What, like a bet?” Gar responded to your words rather than translating them to everyone else, and you rolled your eyes at him. 

‘Yes, a bet.’ You quickly clarified. 

“Are you challengin’ me, Fancy Hands?” Jason posed. “You wanna lose even more disastrously to The One and Only Robin?” He added on, his words dripping with that usual air of cockiness. 

‘Second Robin.’ You reminded him.

Jason knew enough sign language to know these symbols. Especially the one you had specifically taught him for the bird with the same name as his caped alias. So even though Gar failed to translate these words for fear of starting a genuine fight, Jason responded to your feisty words.  

“The One and Only Robin, now that Dickhead Grayson is retired.” He proudly corrected you. 

‘Whatever.’ You shrugged it off. ‘We’ll see if any Robin can win the board game he calls so stupid.’

“Yeah, yeah.” Jason chided. “What kind of bet did you have in mind?” 

‘Loser does all the dishes for two weeks.’ You explained. 

“Loser does all the dishes for two weeks.” Gar explained it to him. 

“Loser between the three of you.” Rachel corrected with a smirk. 

“Loser between the two of them. I’m just the messenger.” Gar quickly told her. 

“The winner gets the last Twinkie from my stash.” Jason added, upping the ante of the bet. 

Gar and Rachel’s eyes practically began glowing (especially considering what their powers made them capable of) at the mere mention of junk food. 

Dick had pretty much banned any food that was considered unhealthy. He said it wasn’t good for training. ‘Why put garbage in the tank? It doesn’t make the engine run properly’ he always nagged. 

The few times you and Rachel had been ‘caught’ coming back from a 7/11 with a bag full of goodies, he had made you read the labels out loud to ‘justify what you were putting inside your bodies’, and blah, blah, blah. So you liked eating sugar? Big deal. 

Eventually all his nagging just made you guys give up, or eat your doses of junk food outside the house (during the rare times he actually let you guys out). But of course, it just made Jason more determined to sneak things in. And of course, with his delinquent mindset, he had come up with a perfect system that involved wearing an overly large coat and keeping food in a false bottom drawer he had created in his room. He had started making you guys do him favors in exchange for snacks, but a lot of the time, it was worth it. 

“Ante up!” Rachel ordered. “Twinkie on the table!” She smacked her palm flat on the table, glaring Jason down until he rose from his seat to go retrieve the desired item. 

… 

You were enjoying game night far more than you thought you would. 

Everyone was, actually. Rousing laughter and chatter filled the room as you all took your turns, argued over the rules, and raced to see who would win. Your mind was distracted far from any sexual thoughts of Gar. You weren’t focused on the things you had accidentally seen when mistakenly crossing the threshold of his mind, or the heated dreams it had caused you to have. For the first time in weeks, a great worry had been lifted from your shoulders. 

Which was probably why it happened. You were probably a fool to think you were safe - to think this new power you had discovered couldn’t act up just because you were sitting around with your friends, innocently playing a board game. 

Gar turned to you, picking up one of the trivia cards to ask you your question as your turn came around. 

“Alright, science.” He announced. “How many bones are in the human body? Is it A: 206, B: 104, C: 198, or D: 236?” 

When he had finished reading it, his eyes flickered up from the card in his hand and met with yours. You were damned by fate as you were once again drawn into the depths of a hot, wicked fantasy of his creation. 

It was another third-person perspective of him and yourself, a portrait of perfect intimacy. 

In the wicked fantasy, he had you pinned against a wall, both of you completely naked - his sweet, bare flesh pinning your heated body against the surface. His breath mingled with yours as pressed kisses into your mouth, clearly torn between claiming your lips over and over again or the simple act of breathing. He wasn’t sure which was more precious - the taste of your mouth under his or the bits of air he needed to survive. 

He had one of your legs hitched up around his hip, your knee up around his back, giving the perfect view as he shoved his cock inside of you. He was so large - hot and heavy, splitting you open with his monster cock without hesitation as your needy cunt dripped around him. He let out a grunt as the wet slide of your pussy enveloped him, loving the most tender touch of your warmth on his aching cock. 

The fat around your hip bloomed through his fingers as he held you steady, hammering his hips against yours. It created a wet smacking sound that sent electricity shooting through you, the fantasy so palpable that you could almost feel the thickness of his cock tearing you open - you could almost feel the heft of those mighty nine inches dragging against your deadly hot inner walls. 

You admired the glisten of sweat on his rippling back muscles, the hot grunts that poured from his swollen lips. You loved the sight of your nails digging into his skin as you gripped his shoulders, desperate to hold on. 

“You’re so good for me.” He murmured against your panting lips, his voice deep, absolutely thick with sex. “I love this pussy so fucking much.” 

“Y/N?” 

This time it took Gar’s voice echoing in your ears in the real world to pull you out of the vivid daydream. 

“You okay?” The pure sweetness of his tone, the quiet caring had you quaking almost as much as the heft of his daydream cock. 

Your pussy throbbed hard between your thighs and your face was burning hot. You could feel the beginnings of sweat glistening on your forehead, and you hoped that your physical reaction to what you had seen wasn’t too obvious in the dull lighting of the room. Perhaps you could blame it on sitting too close to the fireplace. 

You dared to let your eyes have a once-over of Gar’s face, hoping not to be pulled back into the stupor once again. He was looking at you with that familiar wide-eyed, positively clueless expression. He was sitting there thinking about fucking you up against a wall and he had absolutely no clue that you knew. 

“Don’t think too hard about it,” Rachel scoffed. “It’s a pretty softball question.” 

Fuck, right. You were supposed to be playing trivia. 

You had genuinely no idea what the question had been, and wouldn’t dare ask Gar to repeat it for fear of giving yourself away, so you simply picked an answer out of the blue. 

‘C.’ You gestured the sign for the single letter, hoping it was correct if it was supposed to be such a ‘softball’ of a question. 

“Wrong.” Gar sighed, placing the card in the used pile. 

“I thought it was 207?” Jason wondered out loud, sounding genuinely confused. “Oh wait, that’s the joke answer.” 

“Ew.” Rachel cringed. “Don’t be gross.” 

“Hey,” Gar placed a gentle hand on your forearm where it was resting on the table, capturing your attention. “Are you okay? You really zoned out for a minute there.” 

Oh god. He was being so sweet and caring. You almost hated it, because you knew you couldn’t tell him what you had truly seen. You couldn’t explain what was truly wrong with you. 

‘I’m fine.’ You assured him, pulling your hand naturally out of his warm grasp to communicate. You hoped he wouldn’t notice that you were pulling away from him to avoid the heat of his touch and refusing to look at his face. 

“I’m sure she’s fine, Gar.” Rachel smiled. 

You nodded. 

“Some people’s brains just get fried when they’re asked to be smart on the spot.” She added on - this being sass that was clearly directed at Jason. It made you laugh. 

It then moved on to someone else’s turn, and you were glad the focus had shifted away from you. 

…  

Just like everything you had touched lately, game night turned into a disaster. 

Jason realized he wasn’t going to win after he lost one too many pop culture questions. Ones based on movies and shows that he hadn’t even seen. And he claimed it ‘wasn’t even fair’ because he was being questioned based on material that he had no knowledge of. 

When Gar and Rachel told him that was just how the game worked, he proceeded to pull the ‘I was poor growing up, of course I didn’t watch those movies cause I didn’t have a TV’ card. When that got him no sympathy, he flipped the table. A screaming match broke out between the three of them, and everyone stormed off to their separate corners, leaving you to clean up the pieces. Quite literally. 

You managed to find and pick up all the game pieces in the shaggy area rug, and you put them back inside the game box. You figured they might be useful in the future in case everyone made up and did want to play the game again sometime. One of the last things left on the carpet was the crushed Twinkie, which had been smashed by the weight of the coffee table when Jason flipped it over. 

It was still nicely inside its plastic packaging, but it had become a crumbled mixture of cake pieces and artificial frosting, rather than the golden log it once was. You shoved it in your pocket - it was definitely something Gar would still enjoy. Though your relationship with him was strange and strained lately, you would still give it to him. 

You put everything back in the living area exactly as it had been, not wanting to tip off Dick to what had happened. He already had enough reasons to be on Jason’s case, you didn’t want to give him one more. Even though Jason was a bit of a parasite, you thought it was basic decency to have his back. 

Just as you were finished tidying, Dick returned through the elevator, heaving several bags of groceries in both his arms. 

“How was game night?” He smiled at you as you came over to take a few of the bags from him. 

You smiled back, giving him an exaggerated thumbs up with your free hand. 

You knew he had picked up some basic signs in the time of knowing you, but he was nowhere near as fluent as Gar, or even Jason. So you stuck to simple ASL with him, or gave him exaggerated facial expressions. Or just wrote things down on paper or texted like you did with most other people. 

“Good.” His voice held an edge of relief to it. “The four of you should be spending more time together. It’s good for team morale.” 

You felt slightly guilty for lying to him, but you didn’t want to get the others in trouble for something that really wasn’t their fault. He couldn’t force you guys to enjoy spending time together if it wasn’t going to come naturally. 

You put away the groceries in relative silence. Once you had finished folding the reusable bags and putting them away, you were going to escape to your room when Dick caught your attention once again. 

“Um, one more thing.” He said, stopping you in your tracks, making you turn around to face him. You looked at him with curious eyes, and he continued speaking. “It’s probably none of my business, but… is there something going on between you and Gar? You guys used to be like… best friends, and now you hardly ever spend time with him.” 

You felt a dizziness overtake you - that hard drop of your blood pressure from feeling so caught. 

It was like the days when you had first met Gar, when your feelings for him were so bold and unrestrained. And anytime someone mentioned his name around you, you practically melted into a puddle. 

In response to Dick, you simply shrugged. You knew that you looked entirely guilty as your eyes darted around the room - to the counter, the floor, the dull embers in the fire pit - anywhere but at him. 

“Listen, I know this life can be pretty isolating. Especially when you have unique powers. Which is not something I know personally. But I have seen you struggle with it - with using your powers, holding back that unique ability you have when you should be using it and living up to your potential. And I’ve seen Gar help you through it in ways that no one else could.” 

Dick’s words, coming from such a steady and authoritative voice did shock you. You were surprised that he considered your powers to be a ‘unique potential’ - rather than the dangerous, privacy invasion tool that you always saw it as. You were even more surprised to hear that he had observed the ways Gar had helped you when you struggled with the decision to hold back or not, the moral confliction of it all. 

“It’s good to have someone like that. Someone you can rely on. Someone who knows what it’s like. You just… you shouldn’t push him away. You probably need him now more than ever.” 

His words were solid concrete in the otherwise quiet room, weighing down your already heavy heart. 

Even though he had no idea why you had been pushing Gar away, strangely… he was right. You finally looked up to find your mentor’s cold steel gaze staring you down. 

‘Thank you.’ You mouthed the words along with the sign, just in case he didn’t know what it meant. 

He nodded at you, silently releasing you from the conversation. You mindlessly put your hands into the pockets of your sweater as you walked away, and you felt the gentle crinkle of the Twinkie’s wrapper. You decided that you should go visit Gar before you went to bed. 

When you approached his bedroom door, you were surprised to see that it was open. You peered inside, peeking your head around the corner, and you found Gar sprawled out on his bed. His laptop was on his stomach as he stared at the white-blue glow with a bored expression on his face. He was likely studying. Trying this best to. 

You knocked on the open door to make your presence known. He jumped slightly as you broke his concentration, but he quickly recovered from being startled. He sat up fully and put his laptop to the side, the screen still open and casting a glow into the dimly lit room. You didn’t wait for an invitation to come in, and his gaze was drawn to you as you walked into the room, not bothering to shut the door behind you. 

“Y/N. Hey,” He smiled at you, pleasantly surprised that you had come to see him. “Fancy seeing you here.” 

A small twinge of guilt flared in your stomach. 

You felt bad for avoiding him for reasons that weren’t truly his fault. You felt bad for putting a strain on your friendship with him because you couldn’t control your stupid powers. You felt bad that you couldn’t just tell him the truth. 

And a huge part of you felt even worse that you couldn’t control your own lust simply because you knew that he felt somewhat lustful toward you. 

As your eyes glanced at his wide thighs spread out on the bed, even covered by his jeans, your pussy ached. You couldn’t stop thinking about the way those thighs had worked as he thrust his cock in and out of you when he had you pinned to the wall in that fantasy. You hated how your mind was so hyper-focused on something that wasn’t even real. Maybe it was just hotter and more wicked because you knew it was a fantasy of his creation. It drove you more insane because it was something he apparently wanted just as badly as you did. 

Even if you could never tell him you wanted it as badly as he did because of the way you had found out. 

‘I thought you might want this.’ You signed to him. 

Past the hazy fog of your lust clouded thoughts, you remembered why you had come to see Gar in the first place. You took the smashed, pathetic Twinkie out of your pocket and presented it to him with a small grin. 

“Oh thanks!” He was eager to take it from you, ripping open the packaging and taking a bite of the crumbling cake. 

“Yeah, definitely still good.” He assured you with his mouthful, giving you a cheeky smile and a thumbs up. 

You were happy that you had finally done something right. You gave him a small thumbs up in return and went to leave again. But he was quick, abandoning his snack on the bed and jumping up to interrupt your path before you could escape. 

“Y/N, wait. I was hoping we could talk.” He said quietly, his voice full of a strained hope. “I miss you.” 

Even as he pleaded for your attention, your eyes were stuck at your feet. Rather than daring to look up at him, you stared hard at the space where his green socked toes stood in front of yours. You had no clue what exactly was triggering these ‘episodes’ with your powers, but you knew it had something to do with him. You couldn’t risk it, not again. 

You loved how almost all of his clothes were green - a choice he often made because he said it was easier to match his hair the way it now naturally grew from his head. The color would forever remind you of him whenever it came up in life. He had taken everything green in your life and possessed it as his own so that it made you smile whenever you saw it. So that anything green would make you mourn for him long after he had left your life in one way or another. You hated it and loved it at the same time. 

“If I did something wrong, please just tell me. I wanna fix it.” His voice flexed under the weight of his pain. 

It was intensely difficult for you to listen to. 

It sliced through you like a knife. 

Your selfish acts, your uncontrollable, stupid powers and the way you ran from the consequences had somehow convinced him that he had done something wrong. 

Tears pricked your eyes. 

You racked your gaze carefully up his body, and your eyes landed on a piece of vanilla cake crumb that had gotten stuck to his chin from the Twinkie. Just the look of it, something that was so foolish and unserious and so Gar in this very serious moment made you crack a smile. Instinctually, you reached over and brushed it away with your thumb. 

He sighed out a half-breath that could be perceived as a laugh when he realized what you were smiling at. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously at the thought of his own clumsiness. 

‘You have done nothing wrong.’ You assured him, keeping your eyes locked on the wall behind his ear. ‘You never do anything wrong. You’re so good.’ 

“Then what is it?” He pressed. “Will you please just look at me?” 

He used a gentle hand on your chin to force your eyes towards his, and before you could stop it, you were caught up in it again. You were once again sucked into the complicated swell of his beautiful mind. 

But this time it was distinctly different. This time it wasn’t some heated fantasy, wasn’t some painted imagining. 

This was a memory of something that had already happened. It was most definitely a memory you knew well. Although this time it was like you were watching it from the outside - or rather, you were watching it from Gar’s perspective. 

It was a vision of you knelt on the bathroom floor, puking into a toilet. The sounds of your own sickness easily made you cringe. Gar didn’t flinch or feel any disgust though. 

You could feel his emotions like the grooves of a record, carved into the memory and being replayed. All he felt was a great wave of sadness for you. Instinctually, not really knowing what else to do, he reached out and placed a comforting hand on your back as your muscles lurched with another wave of gags, forced by your body’s ill-made systems. 

It was a specific night that you remembered well. 

You had only been in Doctor Caulder’s care for a few weeks at the time, but it had become evident that even though the serum had cured your blindness, your intense migraines and even the occasional seizures caused by your brain tumor still persisted. 

You had crawled to the bathroom with the intention of dealing with your ailments in privacy. But Gar’s room was right next to yours, and he had heard you groaning in pain, had heard you throwing up and gasping for breath because of the pure force of the vomit. 

So he did the only thing he could think to do. He got a glass of water for you to rinse your mouth when you were done, and then he simply sat with you, trying to bring you some comfort in your time of need. He felt hollow and useless as you heaved into the toilet, nothing left in your stomach to give up but bright green stomach bile, your body forcing every last bit of it out as the migraine raged on. 

When the heaving stopped, he pulled you into his lap. He was ready with a warm, damp cloth to put on your forehead, and a towel to wipe your mouth. You relaxed into his calming touch. He bloomed with pride at being able to hold you in his arms, being able to keep you safe, even if he couldn’t heal you from what ailed you. 

‘You can leave.’ You signed to him. 

At the time, he understood it well, even with just a few weeks of studying under his belt. 

A small wave of offense went through him. He didn’t want to leave you. Why would he leave you in such a weak state? He wanted to help you. That’s why he’d gotten out of bed in the first place. 

“I’m not gonna leave.” He told you. “I won’t leave you. Ever.” 

At the time you had been far too sick to really take in the weight of his words. But now, lingering in the memory, you could feel the determination sitting deep in his chest. The affection for you as it swelled inside him, the way he held you just a bit closer. 

You were shocked back to the cold concrete of reality when he gripped your arm in the present, pulling you out of the sweetness of the memory by force. He spoke something that was muffled and full in your ears as you struggled to pull yourself out of the thickness of his clouded mind. The expression on your face must have told him you hadn’t heard him, because he repeated himself. 

“Will you please just tell me what’s wrong?” He demanded, his voice sharp with worry. 

‘Nothing’s wrong.’ You lied, shaking yourself from his grip. ‘I have to go study.’ 

You ran from the room before he could confront you any further. 

Your mind was positively drowning with thoughts about Gar. Did he feel the same way about you? Had he felt the same way about you since the two of you had met? 

Your mind was so clouded that you slammed into your closed bedroom door before you could remember to actually turn the doorknob and open it. It left you cursing internally as you rubbed the sore spot blooming in the middle of your forehead. 

This crush was going to ruin you. 

… 

Unfortunately, you couldn’t easily avoid Gar forever. 

The next day, when Dick was giving out assignments, he paired up you and Gar for sparring practice right before he pulled aside Jason and Rachel for a quiz on the assigned reading material. You tried to wave him down, wanting to protest about having Gar as a partner - but of course, he didn’t read ASL. And he didn’t give you any room to protest as he spouted off about what kind of drills the two of you should be practicing and told you that he would come by in two hours to ‘check-in’ on your progress. 

You wanted to scream. Sometimes, not having a voice truly, utterly sucked. 

You thought perhaps it was Dick’s way of forcing you to make good on the advice he had given you the night before - forcing you to spend time with Gar so that you would stop pushing him away. But it was so damn inconvenient when you still didn’t know what was causing your powers to act up. 

As you walked to the training room, you told yourself again and again that you could bear two hours alone with Gar. Especially because one of the drills that Dick wanted you to practice was blindfolded sparring. That was an easy way not to have your powers flare-up against your will. You told yourself that you needed to get back to normal. You couldn’t have Gar thinking that you hated him - thinking that he was the reason for your strange behavior when he was truly the best, kindest person in your life. 

Well, technically he was the reason for your strange behavior. But not at all in the way he blamed himself for. And you wouldn’t have him thinking that he had fucked up your friendship somehow or pissed you off unintentionally for some reason he couldn’t even name. 

You and Gar exchanged a few words - you agreed that you would wear the blindfold and try to defend against his attacks, and he joked that he would ‘go easy’ on you. It felt delightfully normal between the two of you for a few minutes. 

He gave you one of his perfectly dorky smiles and you felt butterflies in your stomach. Beyond his wildly attractive body, beyond that sexual heat - you remembered why you had fallen for him in the first place. Those boyish charms, that gentle nature that made him so irresistible as a friend and so easy to yearn for as a lover. 

When you put the blindfold on, it felt like a comforting shield against his wild daydreams, trying to buck free from his mind. You both picked up the wooden swords, and when he asked if you were ready, you nodded. 

Unfortunately, you were not exactly on your game. 

Usually, you were quite a skilled fighter. You could keep up with the likes of Jason Todd, who trained night and day just to prove how skilled he was. Your powers gave you slightly honed senses, giving you the ability to hear more acutely, giving you the advantage in a situation like this. 

But that was part of the problem. You were picking up on Gar’s breathing, the heavy panting coming from his lips as he swung the practice sword and started to work up a sweat. Your concentration was clouded by the small grunts he made as he worked his muscles, and the careful, skilled movement of his footfalls as he charged at you. 

He easily landed a few blows - gentle, purposefully light swats - on your arms and torso, and he distinctly noticed you not making any real effort to dodge or fight back. Your mind was too busy churning with the mental image of him sweaty from the effort, imagining those same grunts as he fucked you. 

This crush was going to ruin you. 

Gar stopped his movements, and you relaxed your body, pausing any half-efforts you were making to fight him off. 

“Are you okay?” He asked. “Do you have a migraine or something? Do you need to go lay down?” 

Of course. He was concerned for your well-being. It was something that only made him sweeter, and only made you twinge with guilt at what had been going through your mind. 

‘Fine.’ You responded, performing the sign with one hand, still clutching the practice sword with the other. ‘Keep going.’ 

You heard Gar sigh - clearly somewhat hesitant. 

But then he swung his sword down again, and when you heard it whipping through the air, you made a distinct effort to block it this time. You raised yours up, blocking the blow. He let out a quiet chuckle, pleased now that you were better focused this time around. 

You really tried harder. 

You found yourself blocking his blows, using your own swift footwork, and even then - your unconscious distraction was apparent. 

Usually you were better with your tactile awareness, but as the edge of the mats came under your foot, you didn’t notice. And Gar, ever concerned for your safety, used his non-sword hand to reach out and grab your arm. He quickly yanked you back from the edge in case you tripped and fell. He wouldn’t want you to hit your head on the concrete floor, even if it wouldn’t be a terribly grievous injury. 

But he was pumping with energy from the mock fight, and when he pulled you in, he used far more force than he had intended to. It wasn’t a simple correction of your footing like he intended. He accidentally sent your distracted legs tripping over each other and sent you barreling right into him. With the momentum, you knocked him completely off his legs. You ended up falling right on top of Gar as he landed splayed out on the mats, on his back. 

Gar broke into a gentle laughter, finding the entire thing to be quite amusing. 

His hands naturally found your hips and warmth spread out from there, something that quickly overwhelmed your senses. You dropped your practice sword with a numb hand as you became entirely heated by the feeling of his rock hard body beneath yours. Upon instinct, you reached up, and pulled the blindfold up to rest on your forehead - which turned out to be a terrible mistake. 

In that moment, you came face to face with Gar’s stunning, big brown eyes and you were once again sucked into one of his heated fantasies against your will. 

Unlike the others, this wasn’t a picture you were viewing. It wasn’t something in his mind that you were only seeing from the third perspective. 

No - you were in this. 

Somehow, he had drawn you so deeply into his fantasy this time that you were in it, participating in it, truly feeling it. 

In the daydream, you were sitting on top of him, easily paralleling your current reality.

But in this dreamy version, he was completely naked, and you felt the delightfully throbbing hum of his cock deep inside of you. Because it was just a dream, it wasn’t nearly as distinct as the real thing would have been. But the feeling quickly spread heat through your entire body. Especially when paired with the visuals his imagination had conjured up for you. 

The feeling of his hands on your hips in the real world easily turned into a searing burn that you were sure you could feel on your bare skin. You looked down at him below you, as though you were really straddling his naked body, proudly riding his impressively large cock. His taut muscles rippled under sweaty skin - his abs flexing with the effort, his biceps bulging as he held onto you. 

All of it so enticingly topped off by the sight of his face, his forehead glistening with sweat, stray green hairs stuck to it. The expression he held was almost beautifully pathetic as he struggled with such overwhelming pleasure - his lip snagged between his teeth, his brow heavily creased. Quiet, desperate whimpers escaping from his throat as he guided you to grind on his thickness. 

You let out a sharp moan of your own, desperately aching for breath, and that chugging in your throat was the thing that sucked out of the deep fog of this fantasy. 

When you looked into Gar’s eyes once more, you saw the look of dawning on his face. It was mingled with confusion, but you knew that this time, he had felt it too. He had felt you on a deeper level, and he knew, even if he couldn’t nearly explain it - the two of you had shared that experience on a deeper level. 

And what’s more - out here in the real world, not in some sense of fantasy, you could feel his hardness throbbing against your leg. And it felt just as large and impressive as it was in all those dreams. You knew that your cunt was likely boiling hot against him, giving you away. And though the temptation to lean down and ensnare his mouth was so intense, the temptation to beg him to fuck you right then and there - something inside of you kept chanting:

‘Don’t ruin your friendship. He’s your best friend. Don’t fuck it up.’ 

And somehow, miraculously, fighting against all of your overpowering lust - you listened to that voice. You rushed to get off of him, scrambling off the floor to a standing position on shaking legs. You tried your best to ignore the entirely painful throbbing between your legs as your pussy screamed out for him, for his touch. 

Naturally, Gar thought that he had freaked you out. He thought that the reason you had jumped away from him so fast was because he had a raging hard-on and you were intensely disgusted by it. In his mind, he couldn’t easily see it being the exact opposite reason. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He rushed to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. My body - my body just - reacted-” 

Gar also rose to his feet, awkwardly tugging at the crotch of his loose workout pants to try and disguise it. You made the mistake of glancing at the tent and visually confirmed that it was just as large as he made it out to be in all of his fantasies (and yours). 

‘It’s fine.’ You sighed to him. 

You were once again making steady eye contact with the floor - trying not to get drawn back into his mind. But it only made Gar feel more awkward, more like he had wronged you. 

Gar’s throat immediately numbed when you turned and left to charge out of the room. You were intensely surprised when you felt his hand on your arm once more - that firm, commanding touch pulling you back once again. 

Wrestling with the embarrassment inside of him was a storm of anger. 

The fact that even now, you were so unwilling to talk to him about any of the problems in your friendship. You just kept brushing him off. It caused a very uncharacteristic flare of annoyed rage inside of him that he just couldn’t swallow down. So with the hand that he wasn’t using to hide his boner, he kept that grip on your arm. He forced you to stay, forcing you to turn back and face him. 

Him asserting himself like that, the show of force over you - oddly enough, it only added to the arousal boiling inside of you. A small whimper escaped from your lips, and you resisted the urge to smack a hand over your mouth in some attempt to hide it. You knew that Gar had definitely heard it when his face shifted from that tense anger to a look of sheer guilt. He thought that the grip on your arm had somehow hurt you. 

“I’m sorry.” He repeated himself, quickly dropping the grip on your arm. He was glad when you stayed of your own volition this time. “But, can you just talk to me? Please?” 

You hated to ignore his pleas, your own guilt curling in your stomach. 

After a moment with no response from you, more anger splashed up inside of him. 

“I hate this.” 

He said quietly, his voice almost breaking under the weight of his pain. 

“I hate how we aren’t close anymore. We don’t talk, we don’t spend time together anymore. I feel like I barely even know you…” 

He quickly gained momentum in his ranting, his words picking up from a dull whisper. You crossed your arms, keeping your eyes on the floor. You knew that you were the perfect target for all of his upset - so you simply took it. 

“This place is changing everyone!” He barked, motioning around wildly to the walls. “I’m living with my best friends and I’ve never felt so damn alone!” 

As his words echoed in the open space, he looked at you with intensely sad eyes, obviously waiting for you to say something - waiting for an apology. 

But any explanation you could give would mean admitting that your powers had gone haywire. It would mean telling him that you had been invading his privacy without permission. It was bound to screw up your friendship and leave him feeling just as alone. You clasped your fists tight, staying entirely still while he waited for an answer. 

“Fine then.” He said quietly, absolutely defeated. 

He was the one to charge away this time, harshly smacking his shoulder against yours in anger. He kicked down a rack of weapons on his way out. 

You hear him let out a harsh, exasperated ‘fuck!’ when he got halfway down the hall. 

At that point, you couldn’t help the tears that escaped as the pain surged through your chest. 

Maybe you had fucked up the friendship in an entirely different way.

...

Keep Reading Here: Part Two - Our Past, Our Present, Our Future

[tenpintsofsundrop]

Dreaming Of You

Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader

Part One: The Psychic and The Tiger

Summary:

You and Gar have been best friends for a long time. Nothing could disrupt the harmony of such a perfect friendship.

Nothing except maybe... your usually predictable powers going haywire and somehow showing you all of his heated daydreams about you. But he couldn't possibly have romantic feelings for you. He couldn't possibly want anything more than your close platonic friendship and the occasional steamy fantasy. Right?

Gar Logan x Fem!Mute!Powered!Reader. Best Friends to Lovers. Smut and (Slight) Angst. Set during Season 2.

Word Count: 13,100

Titans Masterlist | AO3 Link | Series Masterlist

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List of detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: some emotional angst (on the basis of mutual angst but they’re both deep in denial), accidental invasion of someone’s privacy (by accidentally reading their mind), some light canon violence (practice sparring/practice fighting), the reader character is disabled - the reader character is 100% mute, the reader character suffered with tumors that were partially cured by Doctor Caulder’s serum, the reader character suffers from migraines and seizures due to remaining brain tumors, the reader character has the ability to read minds, the reader character uses ASL because she is mute, mentions of the reader character having insomnia/difficulty sleeping, mentions of Rachel having a one-sided crush on Gar, the reader is described to exercise a lot and be physically fit but I don’t allot that to a certain body type (I am not excluding her from being fat when I write this), in a lot of passages - the reader is implied to be fat actually, mentions of the reader masturbating, a wholesome family game night that doesn’t really belong in a smut fic lmao, somewhat graphic descriptions of vomit (from illness) (it only occurs in one short section of the fic), passing mentions of disordered eating - but not due to poor body image or mental illness more in the form of restrictions on ‘junk food’ and not eating properly at meal times, dream sequences involving sex - hair-pulling, groping, biting, making out, (implied) shower sex, dirty talk, praise kink, penis in vagina sex (unprotected), mind fucking (but not in the way that you think - sharing sex with someone while having a sexual connection). All of the smut/sex in this chapter is of the day dream variety, but it is still described in graphic/detailed ways. I believe that is everything. 

A/N: The first repost on this new blog! I am so excited about it. If you have any comments or questions about the fic, please let me know, and if you have read it before, I hope you enjoy this new version, and if you're reading it for the first time, I hope that it's a really excellent experience for you.

...

Mind reading is most definitely not what people think it is. 

It’s not at all how movies portray it to be. And it’s definitely not how you imagine it to be when you think about having the ability to access someone’s private thoughts. 

To this day, you still remembered when Gar showed you the British television show Misfits, and you couldn’t help but laugh at the way the character’s mind reading power was portrayed. 

To most of Hollywood, it’s as if a person’s thoughts were a simple string of words laid out in their head, a simple script being read in their voice. As if you can accidentally overhear someone thinking about a certain topic, like one overhears a conversation. 

In reality, it was vastly different for you. 

There was no easy way to explain it, to describe the way it felt to enter the complex vastness of the human mind, but you often tried to put it into words. For one, you were thankful that it took you concentration and intent to use your powers. You never accidentally overheard someone’s thoughts the way a person can hear voices or loud music, or a television in the next room. It kept you from a lot of awkward situations. And most importantly to you, it kept you from barreling into a person’s most private space - the sacred stronghold of their mind - unless it was deemed completely necessary. 

From what you had realized, it required you making eye contact with the person in order for you to enter someone’s mind. 

“Ah yes. The eyes are the window to the soul, after all.” Doctor Caulder had remarked when he had discovered this about your powers. 

Ironic. Thematic, actually, considering that his serum had cured you of a physical blindness. One caused by a brain tumor that any doctor was too afraid to operate on in order to remove. Doctor Caulder liked to credit himself and his serum with giving you the gift of ‘a greater sight’, one that allowed you to peer deep inside others. A gift that he said allowed you to help people. 

To you, though, more often than not, it just felt like invading people’s privacy. And that was something you definitely didn’t enjoy - whether it was ‘helping’ people or not. 

Something you had learned during the minimal amount of time you had used your powers: people can be divided into two types of thinkers. That you found out very quickly. 

The first type are people whose thoughts come in the form of rich, visual landscapes. People who show off their thoughts almost purely with visuals, imagining things that might happen, remembering things that already have in vivid detail. Those people are typically the easiest to navigate, in your experience - but their memories can be the most painful and vivid if you go too deep. 

The second type are people whose thoughts come more in the form of narration - a voice inside their head speaking about their intentions or the information pumping through their mind. 

Although, unlike what most people would think, that voice is not usually their own. 

Most times it is the voice of a mentor or parent, someone who guided and built their thoughts from childhood, someone whose voice sounds firm and thoughtful in their mind. Or sometimes it could even be the voice of a TV character or a radio host, because listening to that piece of media so often caused that voice to clone in their mind and become stuck there accidentally. 

Entering the mind of someone like this can be tricky - their thoughts are difficult to navigate, because they are hard to grasp and become tangible. 

Occasionally you come across someone with a more unique mental landscape, someone in emotional turmoil or someone who simply never had a linear train of thought to begin with. Entering the mind of someone like this is more like a thousand screaming voices and flashing lights, all at once. Incredibly difficult to decipher, a sensory overload to take in.  

But those are only surface level thoughts. Your powers gave you the ability to dive deep into the cave of someone’s mind, to explore the winding halls of their memories, their subconscious. To feel their emotions, to help them work through their traumas, their pain. If they allowed you to delve that deep. Only if they invited you in. 

More often than not, you simply preferred to stay the hell out of other people’s minds. To simply give them the privacy they were owed. 

Which is why when it happened - when your powers started slipping out of your control on that stupid fucking day - you hated it more than you could be proud of it. Even if the information you discovered cemented a dream into reality that you’d been having since the day you met Garfield Logan. 

It had been a Saturday morning like any other. 

Well, one as routine as to be expected when living the Titans lifestyle. 

Moving into the Tower was actually nice to attempt to put down roots considering what you had been through over the past year or so. When you originally uprooted your life in Covington, Ohio to follow Gar, you certainly hadn’t expected the wild path he would lead you on. A path that would lead to you getting kidnapped by a doomsday cult and tortured, being lured to a house in the middle of nowhere and mentally tortured some more. All in all leaving that house with absolutely no sense of direction in your life, mentally scarred and broken. 

But you never blamed Gar for getting you into trouble. In fact, you were glad to be there to support him through everything that had happened. 

Gar was your best friend, your person, and you would have followed him anywhere. 

So naturally when he moved into the newly reopened Titans Tower, so did you. Dick didn’t fully understand the extent of your abilities, because in order to show people, you had to violate their privacy, and it wasn’t always something you were keen on doing. He simply trusted Gar at his word that you were more than capable of becoming a Titan. 

That blind faith Dick had put in you, backed by Gar’s word, that heavily motivated you to train hard in all other areas to ensure that Dick knew Gar could be trusted. To pull through on that promise and show your worth. 

That’s why you were up so early that morning. You liked to get a head start on things. You liked to be up before everyone else to prove that you were working hard on your training, working hard on studying the things that Dick wanted you to know. 

At least, those were the excuses you had prepared if anyone asked. Or the things you told yourself to escape the reality of it - to say that you were using your time wisely these days. 

Truthfully, you were never very good with sleeping. 

Between your chronic headaches, pain that left intense aches down your neck and spine, and the awful nausea that it plagued you with, and the strange dreams that your powers seemed to be paired with, you didn’t often get much sleep. 

You were still figuring out how your incredibly strange dreams coincided with your ability to breach other people’s private thoughts. But you guessed that it was simply part of that whole ‘greater sight’ thing. Especially considering that those dreams seemed to depict the future in some way. 

You often found your sleep disrupted by these dreams - visions of death or violence or even strange faces you had never seen before. And more often than not, you decided to pursue more productive activities than tossing and turning in your sheets until your alarm rang. 

Strangely enough, one of the very first dreams you’d had after being injected with the serum had been a strange setting where you were garbed in a giant, poofy white wedding dress, getting married to a large green tiger who wore a black bowtie among his bright green fur. At the time, you had genuinely convinced yourself that it was just a strange fever dream caused by the serum. Up until you’d met Gar, and something in the pit of your stomach told you that he was the green tiger in question. 

But you had never told anyone about that dream, and probably never would.

It’s something that was very far from your mind as you enjoyed breakfast early that morning. 

Dick usually let everyone ‘sleep in’ on Saturdays - as much as Jason complained that sleeping until eight was not a luxury, he and the others usually still took advantage of it. But you were up long before sunrise on that day. 

You were sitting at the kitchen island, absentmindedly snacking on some dry cereal with your journal open in front of you. You were sketching a picture of something you had seen in one of your dreams. A girl with waves of silver hair and eyepatch that you didn’t recognize, but had a gut feeling was important somehow. You glanced up at the sound of footsteps coming into the room, and found yourself surprised but happy to see that it was Gar. 

He was clearly still half asleep, his eyes barely open. He wore plaid pajama pants and a green pullover hoodie, hair still adorably messy and uncombed. He looked so utterly soft and cuddly, something that made those undeniable butterflies stir in the pit of your stomach. 

When you looked over at the clock attached to the stove, it was barely five-thirty in the morning. The sun was just kissing the sky orange to your right, casting a warm orange glow across the entire room through the many tall windows. You were almost shocked that anything other than Dick’s fist hammering on Gar’s door had gotten him out of bed this early. 

“Morning.” He grunted at you as he tiredly stumbled toward the fridge. He opened it with haste and grabbed the carton of orange juice. 

Of course. He wanted a snack. 

He uncapped it and gulped it with enthusiasm, not bothering to get a glass or even close the refrigerator door. The sharp light of the halogen bulbs and the cool air pouring from the appliance almost hurt you, your overly sensitive eyes and skin picking up on the sensations more potently in the soft morning light of the room. 

Gar turned around, the carton still poised to his lips. He took large swigs that made his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, and he kicked the fridge door shut behind him as he finally put the carton down on the counter, exhaling a large, nasty burp. He looked at you with a sleepy smile, almost making you mad with how cute he could be after doing something like that. 

You were about to comment on the disgusting nature of his habits when something strange happened - something that had never happened to you before. 

You locked eyes with him, and with absolutely no intention or purpose on your part, you were struck with a flood of his thoughts. A vision, a vivid painting brought to life by his imagination. 

It was a distinct, full picture of the two of you. 

He had you pressed against the kitchen island, his hands commanding and warm on your hips, like they belonged there. His body was firm against yours, tightly pressed against you as if trying to spite the clothes you wore - and his lips were on yours in a demanding kiss. It was entirely passionate, downright hungry. He left gentle nips on your bottom lip as you ran your hands through his sleep mussed hair, your gentle tug on it forcing a moan from his throat, his tongue pressing into- 

A gentle gasp coiled in the back of your throat as you were shocked back to reality, finally able to force yourself out of his mind. 

You had no idea how the accidental violation had even occurred in the first place, but to stay there and indulge in it would only be continuing to do him a great injustice. When you dared to let your eyes flicker back to his face, he was staring at you with a strange look - his brow slightly furrowed, worry dancing across his mouth. Clearly he wanted to ask you what was wrong. You hadn’t greeted him or said ‘good morning’ in any sort of fashion yet, and now you were just sitting there, frozen on your stool, every inch of your body tight as ice at what you had just seen. 

“Did you want some?” He asked, picking up the orange juice carton and holding it out to you. 

It was adorably ignorant of him - to think the strange look that had struck your face was over some dispute about orange juice. That you were annoyed because he wasn’t sharing well enough. You simply shook your head in the negative and began gathering your things as quickly as possible, trapping your pencil between the pages of your notebook as you scrambled to get out of his sight. 

You needed time to think. 

You had no idea what the hell had just happened, but you sure wanted to avoid him until you could figure it out. Until you could get it under control. You raised your hand and signed something about showering to him. But your movements were quick and sloppy and you didn’t look at him for confirmation that he understood before you barreled out of the room. You were too eager to hide in your bedroom until you were absolutely forced to see him again. 

… 

It’s not like you hadn’t thought about it before. 

You had thought about it a lot, actually. 

But he had been far too good a friend for you to ever risk losing that friendship over your stupid lust - over some stupid schoolgirl crush that you were sure would go away. And the whole uprooting your life and having a demon from another dimension invade your mind and show you the darkest parts of yourself thing definitely made you put your crush for Gar on the back burner. 

It’s not like you were blind to how entirely perfect Gar was. He was handsome, he was cute - so entirely adorable in his boyish looks and his sweet smile. So cute and excitable, with the way he could be bashful, yet confident at the same time when spurting out random facts about video games or going on and on about seemingly any subject that excited him. And you quickly realized that he had more than boyish charms the first time you had seen him shirtless - accidentally caught him changing when living together at Caulder House - and you saw his gorgeous physique on display. 

You had been smitten with Gar since the very first moment you had met him, actually.

Back then your crush was something that should have been glaringly obvious to him. You could barely maintain eye contact with him within the first few days of knowing him, you were always so flustered around him. That, on top of the playful teasing of your housemates, wondering when the two of you were finally going to admit that unspoken thing you had going on. 

But when the two of you left Caulder House and set out to explore the world - it had remained unspoken. 

If Gar had known about your crush on him, it had never affected the way he treated you. Your friendship grew so strong so quickly, and you never wanted to lose that. You never wanted to lose him. So you settled for platonic couch cuddles and late night multiplayer and him letting you sleep in his bed whenever you got a bad migraine. 

And then Rachel came along. And you saw the way he looked at her, the way she looked at him. And even though you thought you had probably lost any chance of ever being with him the way you had dreamed of - you still packed your bag and squeezed into the back of Dick’s Porsche with him when he begged for you to come. 

Naturally, you were spinning at the revelation that apparently, he had thought of you the same way you thought of him. You almost wanted to convince yourself that it had been a mistake. That it had just been a fantasy you had cooked up inside your own mind. It’s not like you didn’t have many, many fantasies about Gar running around in there. 

But no. You knew distinctly what it felt like to use your powers. Being inside the private cave of someone else’s mind - even touching the surface of its depths is a unique experience. And doing it by mistake feels no different than doing it on purpose. 

You had no clue what had caused your powers to go off by mistake, but you definitely knew the feeling of using them. 

Those were most definitely Gar’s thoughts that had invaded your mind. Gar’s thoughts about kissing you, handling you with such intense passion. Your skin startled to crawl with a unique heat as you remembered the vision so vividly. You heaved a great sigh as you flung yourself backward onto your bed. You gazed over at the clock. It was almost time for training. You wouldn’t be able to hide from Gar for much longer. 

…  

You were just glad that training that day consisted of blindfolded sparring. 

Dick seemed very surprised when you volunteered to go first after he introduced the unorthodox exercise. But to you, it was a simple logic that had you eagerly chopping at the bit to get a piece of cloth covering your eyes. If you were blindfolded, there was no chance of you catching Gar’s eye. Or anyone’s for that matter. 

You had no idea if your powers were simply spinning out of control, or if it was an unintentional emotional reaction triggered by Gar’s presence. You weren’t quite sure which was worse. If it was a case of your powers going rogue, growing stronger somehow, then perhaps you’d have to start wearing a blindfold all the time. 

If it was specifically something with Gar, then… maybe that was worse. It probably signaled something deeper with you. Your feelings for him clawing at your unconscious, begging to be spilled to the open air. Which you really weren’t eager to let happen anytime soon. 

You were almost relieved when Dick paired you off with Jason, saying that your skill set ‘complimented’ his. He explained that he wanted the two of you to try the blindfolding exercise together while he quizzed Gar and Rachel on logic puzzles in the other room. At least Gar would be required to be away from you for a while, and you’d have a very slim chance of catching Jason’s eyes. You didn’t want to know what kind of things he was thinking, what secrets he had. Definitely not. 

As the two of you sparred, you were entirely unfocused, your thoughts swimming. 

Jason caught you off guard, and easily swept you off your feet completely as he struck you hard in the ankle with the wooden practice sword he was wielding. You grunted gently as you hit the floor, and rolled over on your back, defeated. You reluctantly removed the blindfold as you caught your breath, and saw him standing above you, offering you a hand to help you up. As you blinked against the sharp light meeting your eyes, you accidentally caught his gaze, making direct, certain eye contact with him.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened. You breathed a small sigh of relief. 

“You okay, Fancy Hands?” He asked, leaning down so his helping hand was closer to you. 

It was a nickname he had affectionately given you the first time he’d seen you use ASL when you had met - back at the safe house in Chicago. Back when Jason had used Dick’s tracker to find him and you all met the surprise second Robin for the first time. 

At the time, you had been surprised to find out that Jason actually knew quite a few signs because one of the kids he’d been in foster care with had been deaf. You had explained to him that your hearing was perfectly fine - your mutism was because of a surgery during your childhood that had removed a tumor from your throat and had left your vocal cords damaged. It was something that had occurred long before your life had become about powers, a green tiger, and one too many Robins to count. 

In the present, you were simply thankful that your powers didn’t seem to act up with him. 

In response to his question, you nodded, taking his hand. 

He helped you to your feet quickly, and you found your own practice sword where it had fallen. You then replaced your blindfold once again. Though it was slightly troubling to know that this sudden shift in your powers only seemed to be triggered by Gar - that knowledge did help you focus a bit more on the lesson. 

As you focused, you blocked two of Jason’s hits with your sword and landed a swift, sharp hit somewhere on him. 

“Ow!” He whined. “Take it easy, Fancy Hands, this is only supposed to be practice.” 

You giggled, smiling to yourself. 

… 

It had been a few days since then. 

And you had been strategically avoiding Gar. 

At least, avoiding him as much as you could without arousing major suspicion. It was a pretty large living space, and with only four other people in it, it was next to impossible to come up with excuses to avoid him entirely. He was your best friend, after all. If you just quit spending time with him entirely, that would cause him to ask way too many questions. And you definitely couldn’t give him the answers to any of those questions. 

You had made a hard agreement shortly after you had met him - you promised that you would never use your powers on him without his explicit permission unless it was some kind of emergency. A life or death situation. You both easily agree that his brain was his brain, and like every other person on the planet, it was his private sanctuary. He was entitled to that privacy. He deserved that much. Everyone did. That’s why you always tried to avoid using your powers at all costs. 

You didn’t want to explain to him that you had accidentally broken your promise - that you had seen some of his most private thoughts. On top of that, it was like a giant tease toward your feelings for him. Feelings you shouldn’t even have for your best friend. 

So in the meantime, while you were trying to figure out how to reign in your powers and stop from having another freak accident like the one in the kitchen, you stuck to what you considered ‘safe’ activities with Gar. Things the two of you could do together that would absolutely minimize eye contact between the two of you. 

Things like: studying Dick’s allotted mandatory reading material, where your eyes would be safely glued to the pages of a book. Playing video games with him, where your eyes would have to be on the screen. And you always made sure you sat next to him at the dinner table, where your eyes would be parallel to his, or stayed safely on your dinner plate. 

You had been doing just fine until another accident happened. 

Of course, it happened because of factors you hadn’t taken into account. 

You had been up late in the training room, something you did often. Because of your hesitance to use your powers, you liked to exercise often to be in peak physical condition in case fighting was ever necessary on your behalf. 

On top of that, you and Jason had somewhat of a silent rivalry going. You had kicked his ass quite a few times during training sessions, and though he would never say it, he liked how you kept him on his toes. So now you were always trying to quietly outdo the other. Something you were caught up in thinking about as you floated down the hallway toward the bathroom on light feet, your toiletry bag in hand, hoping Jason hadn’t beaten you to the shower. 

What you were not at all expecting, was to collide heavily with a half-naked, still wet from the shower Gar. With neither of you paying attention to where you were going, you smacked into each other at a fair speed, him waltzing out of the bathroom and straight into you. Your toiletry bag went flying, and with the zipper undone, your products scattered out across the floor. 

“Shit, oh my god, I’m sorry.” Gar quickly apologized, being the entirely sweet person that he was. 

You both leaned down in unison and began picking up the mess of bottles and other products. You forced yourself to keep your eyes steadily on the floor, not daring to look toward his face, no matter how much you missed his sweet smile and those big brown eyes looking back at you. You couldn’t risk it, not if you would make that unintentional invasion of his privacy once again. 

Gar’s chest twinged with sour notes as you avoided his gaze. Usually, you were always so pleased to be around him. He thought that he had done something wrong. Something grander that he had somehow failed to perceive. 

“I guess I better watch where I’m going, huh?” He chuckled, trying to make conversation with you. 

Truthfully, he just wanted a reaction out of you - he needed to see your smile like wilting plants needed rain. He worried that he wasn’t going to get it anytime soon. 

You kept your eyes glued to the floor, making it an exercise in self-discipline. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see his dripping wet leg and the edge of the fluffy, white towel he was wearing. You knew he was shirtless and it was far too tempting to look. 

When your hand went for the bottle of conditioner at the same time as his - you accidentally brushed over each other. You felt a unique heat creeping up your spine. Like magnets, like a plant growing toward the sun - like any natural reaction that self discipline can’t be stopped - your eyes flickered up and met with his. 

And once again, you became trapped in the depths of his dangerous gaze. 

You were sucked into his mind before you could stop it. In a millisecond, all of your senses became consumed by another vision of his imagining. 

You were surprised to find that it was a scene of you, alone. 

It was a way you had never viewed yourself before; getting the chance to see yourself through someone else’s eyes, even if it was only imaginary, was quite a strange sensation. 

The scene was an outside perspective of yourself showering, as if someone was staring at you through the clear glass door. You had to admit that it was positively erotic. The way the bubbles cascaded down your skin, the way your hands rubbed your flesh as you washed yourself. The dream you stopped the smooth lathering partway to grab and grope at your thighs and breasts, moaning lightly under your breath as you did so. 

You had never thought you could be so… dreamy. 

You didn’t remain alone in the shower for long, though. 

As if out of nowhere, Gar appeared behind you, his naked body almost eclipsed by yours, save for his delightful broad shoulders and his head as it poked out around yours. You had never seen a more appealing sight in your life. His gorgeous face with wet hair stuck to his forehead, the grin that came across his cheeks as he looked at you. His arms came to wrap around your waist as he gently brushed a loofa across your stomach. He began kissing along your shoulder, licking his tongue across your neck and boldly moaning at the taste of your skin-

You forcefully pulled yourself from the vision. As you rocketed back to reality, it was like having ice water thrown down your back. 

The surrounding warmth of the imaginary shower was gone, and you were once again in the cool night air of the hallway. You gazed across Gar’s face, taking in the wide-eyed, clueless expression he wore. He almost looked worried for you, wondering why you had spaced out like that. He had absolutely no idea of what you had just seen. 

You snatched the bottle of conditioner out from underneath his palm and shoved it into your bag. Miraculously, you stood up on shaking legs, turning around and going to escape back to your room. 

“Didn’t you wanna use the shower?” Gar called after you quietly. 

Right. Your shower. 

You whipped back around, nodding at him in passing - but you kept your eyes locked on the floor as you sped by him. You practically ran into the bathroom before he could make any comments about your strange behavior. 

You shut and locked the bathroom door behind you, sealing yourself in the smothering heat and steam that he had left behind. When you glanced over at the mirror and saw that he had been drawing funny faces in the condensation - something that was so terribly Gar it almost hurt - you felt even worse about violating his privacy. Even if it was an accident. 

You tried to let the guilt go as you scrubbed away at your body. You told yourself that it wasn’t your fault. 

Eventually, you found yourself only reminded of his steamy fantasy as the bubbles ran across your skin. You had never felt sexier, never felt more attractive in your entire life than you did in his eyes, in his imagining of you completely naked. 

The biggest reason that it boosted your confidence? His mental image of you was so strangely honest. 

In his dream, you weren’t cartoonish or overdone by his lust. Even though he had never seen you naked before, your breasts weren’t ballooned out or perkier than they should have been. There wasn’t a great amount of fat trimmed from your body, as if he desired you to be thinner than you were. It was so gratefully you - but it was a hot, sexy, fantastic version of you. A version that he apparently wanted to have shower sex with. 

The very thought had you pulling down the extendable shower head and holding it between your legs, getting off to the way Gar thought of you. It was perfect - until Jason’s banging on the bathroom door, complaining that you had been taking too long, interrupted you. 

… 

Gar’s hands were all over you. 

It left you absolutely breathless, giving you no room to escape the pleasure he was delivering. He had turned you into a quivering, moaning mess. His mouth was between your legs, on your neck, on your breasts. His perfect lips were hot on your own, trying to trap the indescribable sounds you were making for him. You were completely pliant to him, to his needs, a melted puddle of want under his ever giving hands. 

“God, you’re so fucking perfect.” He moaned into your ear, finally lining his cock up to your throbbing entrance, finally ready to give you what you needed most. “I can’t wait to watch you cum on my cock.” 

His dirty words only fueled the every growing desire that was mounting inside you. You keened out pathetically as he finally pushed inside you. His cock ignited you with a sharp electricity, filling you up so perfectly. 

You were shocked out of your strangely wonderful dream by a pounding on your bedroom door - Dick coming to wake you up for training. 

“Morning jog in twenty minutes.” He called out through your door, making you groan into your pillow. 

There wouldn’t even be enough time to relieve the hard painful throbbing between your legs before you had to get out of bed. 

As much as you loved the man who had so graciously taken you in and now acted as such an amazing mentor to you - you really hated Dick Grasyon sometimes. 

…  

Gar had been plaguing your dreams since you had discovered the kind of thoughts he had been having about you. Of course, he had been the subject of plenty of your daydreams - but this was so much stronger. He had invaded your subconscious and made a home for himself there. 

More intense than any fantasy you had ever cooked up yourself, every single time you closed your eyes - he was there. You could feel his lips on your skin, could feel his hands on you. It had become more difficult than usual to sleep, and when you did, you woke up with a light sheen of sweat covering you, your pussy soaked and throbbing, absolutely needy for him. 

You knew it would be wrong. It would absolutely be wrong if you acted on your feelings for Gar now, well-informed that he was attracted to you too. That he might want the same things as you. It was so undoubtedly wrong to take information you had discovered with your powers and use it for personal gain like this. 

But, on the other hand, you knew the only reason he was plaguing your mind so much - you had some hope that he felt the same way. That he returned your big, scary feelings. 

But that was the thing, wasn’t it? 

You couldn’t know for certain if he felt exactly the same way that you did. 

Yes, you had seen him imagining kissing you, imagining doing sexual things with you. You knew that he thought of you in an erotic way. But that only meant he wanted to fuck you. 

It certainly didn’t mean that he wanted to be seriously romantic with you or that he wanted a serious relationship. He also could have sexual fantasies about Jason swimming around in his head - ones that you hadn’t seen. 

Nothing about what you had seen said he was in love with you. So if you told him about your feelings for him unprompted, not only would you make yourself look like an idiot, but you would eventually have to tell him about the things you had accidentally seen. He would never forgive you for violating his privacy, and you would be heartbroken. 

Sometimes you really wished you could just be normal. 

… 

“Well, this is fucking stupid.” Jason griped, throwing himself down onto the couch with a heavy sigh. 

“Yeah, we all know that, Jason.” Rachel quickly agreed. “But if Dick comes back and doesn’t see us having Happy Bonding Board Game Fun Times, then he’ll make us run laps or balance plates on our heads again.” 

She proposed an easy argument in favor of shutting up and co-operating as she unpacked the many pieces of the board game that Dick had gotten you guys - Trivial Pursuit. Something ‘fun and educational’, he had explained. 

You laughed under your breath at Rachel’s comment. 

Dick wanted the four of you to spend more time ‘bonding as a team’. He had explained that one of the reasons the Old Titans worked so well together out in the field was because they did casual, friendly activities together as well as training together. He wanted this new team to be as strong as the old one. 

You thought maybe this sporadic encouragement of bonding had been brought on by how you had been acting. With your dreams growing more intense each night, you had been increasingly turning down Gar’s invitations to play video games together, or study together. You had even started making up excuses to take dinner into your room or skipping dinner altogether in favor of eating bowls of cereal when no one else was around. And you knew Dick had noticed. 

But you also knew that you weren’t the only one to blame. 

The whole ‘team bonding’ thing could have easily been prompted by Jason’s increased agitation with the living situation, his eagerness to leave you all behind and get back to Gotham. And the fact that Rachel, like you, now rarely came out of her room. 

This always left Gar in a strange situation where he was desperate for friendship but everyone pulled away from him, everyone wanted to isolate themselves but him. You felt increasingly guilty about it. You felt so bad for abandoning your best friend. But every time you looked at him, even without making that dangerous eye contact, heat began to rise in your face as flashes of his fantasies or your wicked dreams began popping into your mind. 

But now you were all being forced to spend time together. You couldn’t avoid it so easily. You knew there was no excuse you could cook up to get out of it. And like Rachel had said, you didn’t want yourself and the others to be plagued with some dumb punishment like running laps if you could just be playing a board game instead. 

All four of you were sitting around the small coffee table in the living room area of the open concept space, the fire pit sending warm waves over you as the dark sky went on boundlessly through the tall windows. The lamp above your heads and the city lights cast a warm glow over everything, creating a beautifully pleasant atmosphere that made it easy to ignore your problems. 

Dick was gone out on some ‘errands’, and made you all promise to play the game and spend some time together while he was gone. 

“I like board games.” Gar smiled, picking up one of the pieces and inspecting it. “Of course, I do prefer multiplayer online. But some old fashioned tabletop is good to throw in there every once and a while.” 

You smiled at Gar’s comment. He was so wonderfully nerdy. Undeniably one of the reasons you had developed feelings for him in the first place. 

You were seated beside him on the plush rug, crossed legged, your knee just barely brushing against his. It felt strangely normal to be like this, pretending like nothing odd had happened between you in the weeks past. You were enjoying the feeling, indulging in actually getting to hang out with your best friend without worrying about romantic feelings or any of the other bullshit. 

“Could you not be a total dork for like… five seconds?” Rachel quipped, raising an eyebrow at Gar. 

Gar threw the game piece at her, and it bounced off her chest before it disappeared somewhere on the floor, making her look for it. You laughed. 

“Ugh, this is so fucking stupid.” Jason groaned into a small throw pillow from the couch that he had pulled into his face. “I don’t want to play this dumb fucking game.” 

‘Are you afraid you’ll lose?’ You signed. 

Seeing as Rachel didn’t know that much ASL, and Jason wasn’t even looking at you, his face still covered by the pillow in his little tantrum, Gar interpreted for you. 

“Are you afraid you’re gonna lose?” He announced to the room in a tone ripe with sass. 

Rachel smiled at the challenge, looking over her shoulder to see how Jason would react. 

“What? No.” Jason snapped, sitting up and tossing the pillow behind him. “It’s just a stupid game. I’m sure there are far better things I could be spending my time doing.” 

‘Then play.’ You signed, making steady eye contact with Jason, challenging him. 

“Then why don’t you just play?” Gar spoke, adding a few more words. Not that you minded. You thought it was generous and sweet that he had rushed to learn ASL in the first few months of knowing you just so he could communicate better with you. It was one of the things that had made you fall for him so hard, so fast. 

Jason’s face was struck with the realization that you were the one challenging him, not Gar. His eyes flickered between the three of you,  and then he settled into a seat on the carpet beside Rachel. 

“Okay fine, how do you even play this stupid game?” He grumbled quietly, snatching the instructions from Rachel. 

‘Why don’t we make things interesting?’ You said, knowing you could aggravate Jason’s competitive side even more. 

And in the back of your mind, you were thinking about the fact that if you were too focused on winning the game, you wouldn’t be too focused on Gar. You wouldn’t be thinking about the fact that he had shifted closer to you, and his thigh was pressing more into yours, spreading a deadly heat across your skin under your clothes.

“What, like a bet?” Gar responded to your words rather than translating them to everyone else, and you rolled your eyes at him. 

‘Yes, a bet.’ You quickly clarified. 

“Are you challengin’ me, Fancy Hands?” Jason posed. “You wanna lose even more disastrously to The One and Only Robin?” He added on, his words dripping with that usual air of cockiness. 

‘Second Robin.’ You reminded him.

Jason knew enough sign language to know these symbols. Especially the one you had specifically taught him for the bird with the same name as his caped alias. So even though Gar failed to translate these words for fear of starting a genuine fight, Jason responded to your feisty words.  

“The One and Only Robin, now that Dickhead Grayson is retired.” He proudly corrected you. 

‘Whatever.’ You shrugged it off. ‘We’ll see if any Robin can win the board game he calls so stupid.’

“Yeah, yeah.” Jason chided. “What kind of bet did you have in mind?” 

‘Loser does all the dishes for two weeks.’ You explained. 

“Loser does all the dishes for two weeks.” Gar explained it to him. 

“Loser between the three of you.” Rachel corrected with a smirk. 

“Loser between the two of them. I’m just the messenger.” Gar quickly told her. 

“The winner gets the last Twinkie from my stash.” Jason added, upping the ante of the bet. 

Gar and Rachel’s eyes practically began glowing (especially considering what their powers made them capable of) at the mere mention of junk food. 

Dick had pretty much banned any food that was considered unhealthy. He said it wasn’t good for training. ‘Why put garbage in the tank? It doesn’t make the engine run properly’ he always nagged. 

The few times you and Rachel had been ‘caught’ coming back from a 7/11 with a bag full of goodies, he had made you read the labels out loud to ‘justify what you were putting inside your bodies’, and blah, blah, blah. So you liked eating sugar? Big deal. 

Eventually all his nagging just made you guys give up, or eat your doses of junk food outside the house (during the rare times he actually let you guys out). But of course, it just made Jason more determined to sneak things in. And of course, with his delinquent mindset, he had come up with a perfect system that involved wearing an overly large coat and keeping food in a false bottom drawer he had created in his room. He had started making you guys do him favors in exchange for snacks, but a lot of the time, it was worth it. 

“Ante up!” Rachel ordered. “Twinkie on the table!” She smacked her palm flat on the table, glaring Jason down until he rose from his seat to go retrieve the desired item. 

… 

You were enjoying game night far more than you thought you would. 

Everyone was, actually. Rousing laughter and chatter filled the room as you all took your turns, argued over the rules, and raced to see who would win. Your mind was distracted far from any sexual thoughts of Gar. You weren’t focused on the things you had accidentally seen when mistakenly crossing the threshold of his mind, or the heated dreams it had caused you to have. For the first time in weeks, a great worry had been lifted from your shoulders. 

Which was probably why it happened. You were probably a fool to think you were safe - to think this new power you had discovered couldn’t act up just because you were sitting around with your friends, innocently playing a board game. 

Gar turned to you, picking up one of the trivia cards to ask you your question as your turn came around. 

“Alright, science.” He announced. “How many bones are in the human body? Is it A: 206, B: 104, C: 198, or D: 236?” 

When he had finished reading it, his eyes flickered up from the card in his hand and met with yours. You were damned by fate as you were once again drawn into the depths of a hot, wicked fantasy of his creation. 

It was another third-person perspective of him and yourself, a portrait of perfect intimacy. 

In the wicked fantasy, he had you pinned against a wall, both of you completely naked - his sweet, bare flesh pinning your heated body against the surface. His breath mingled with yours as pressed kisses into your mouth, clearly torn between claiming your lips over and over again or the simple act of breathing. He wasn’t sure which was more precious - the taste of your mouth under his or the bits of air he needed to survive. 

He had one of your legs hitched up around his hip, your knee up around his back, giving the perfect view as he shoved his cock inside of you. He was so large - hot and heavy, splitting you open with his monster cock without hesitation as your needy cunt dripped around him. He let out a grunt as the wet slide of your pussy enveloped him, loving the most tender touch of your warmth on his aching cock. 

The fat around your hip bloomed through his fingers as he held you steady, hammering his hips against yours. It created a wet smacking sound that sent electricity shooting through you, the fantasy so palpable that you could almost feel the thickness of his cock tearing you open - you could almost feel the heft of those mighty nine inches dragging against your deadly hot inner walls. 

You admired the glisten of sweat on his rippling back muscles, the hot grunts that poured from his swollen lips. You loved the sight of your nails digging into his skin as you gripped his shoulders, desperate to hold on. 

“You’re so good for me.” He murmured against your panting lips, his voice deep, absolutely thick with sex. “I love this pussy so fucking much.” 

“Y/N?” 

This time it took Gar’s voice echoing in your ears in the real world to pull you out of the vivid daydream. 

“You okay?” The pure sweetness of his tone, the quiet caring had you quaking almost as much as the heft of his daydream cock. 

Your pussy throbbed hard between your thighs and your face was burning hot. You could feel the beginnings of sweat glistening on your forehead, and you hoped that your physical reaction to what you had seen wasn’t too obvious in the dull lighting of the room. Perhaps you could blame it on sitting too close to the fireplace. 

You dared to let your eyes have a once-over of Gar’s face, hoping not to be pulled back into the stupor once again. He was looking at you with that familiar wide-eyed, positively clueless expression. He was sitting there thinking about fucking you up against a wall and he had absolutely no clue that you knew. 

“Don’t think too hard about it,” Rachel scoffed. “It’s a pretty softball question.” 

Fuck, right. You were supposed to be playing trivia. 

You had genuinely no idea what the question had been, and wouldn’t dare ask Gar to repeat it for fear of giving yourself away, so you simply picked an answer out of the blue. 

‘C.’ You gestured the sign for the single letter, hoping it was correct if it was supposed to be such a ‘softball’ of a question. 

“Wrong.” Gar sighed, placing the card in the used pile. 

“I thought it was 207?” Jason wondered out loud, sounding genuinely confused. “Oh wait, that’s the joke answer.” 

“Ew.” Rachel cringed. “Don’t be gross.” 

“Hey,” Gar placed a gentle hand on your forearm where it was resting on the table, capturing your attention. “Are you okay? You really zoned out for a minute there.” 

Oh god. He was being so sweet and caring. You almost hated it, because you knew you couldn’t tell him what you had truly seen. You couldn’t explain what was truly wrong with you. 

‘I’m fine.’ You assured him, pulling your hand naturally out of his warm grasp to communicate. You hoped he wouldn’t notice that you were pulling away from him to avoid the heat of his touch and refusing to look at his face. 

“I’m sure she’s fine, Gar.” Rachel smiled. 

You nodded. 

“Some people’s brains just get fried when they’re asked to be smart on the spot.” She added on - this being sass that was clearly directed at Jason. It made you laugh. 

It then moved on to someone else’s turn, and you were glad the focus had shifted away from you. 

…  

Just like everything you had touched lately, game night turned into a disaster. 

Jason realized he wasn’t going to win after he lost one too many pop culture questions. Ones based on movies and shows that he hadn’t even seen. And he claimed it ‘wasn’t even fair’ because he was being questioned based on material that he had no knowledge of. 

When Gar and Rachel told him that was just how the game worked, he proceeded to pull the ‘I was poor growing up, of course I didn’t watch those movies cause I didn’t have a TV’ card. When that got him no sympathy, he flipped the table. A screaming match broke out between the three of them, and everyone stormed off to their separate corners, leaving you to clean up the pieces. Quite literally. 

You managed to find and pick up all the game pieces in the shaggy area rug, and you put them back inside the game box. You figured they might be useful in the future in case everyone made up and did want to play the game again sometime. One of the last things left on the carpet was the crushed Twinkie, which had been smashed by the weight of the coffee table when Jason flipped it over. 

It was still nicely inside its plastic packaging, but it had become a crumbled mixture of cake pieces and artificial frosting, rather than the golden log it once was. You shoved it in your pocket - it was definitely something Gar would still enjoy. Though your relationship with him was strange and strained lately, you would still give it to him. 

You put everything back in the living area exactly as it had been, not wanting to tip off Dick to what had happened. He already had enough reasons to be on Jason’s case, you didn’t want to give him one more. Even though Jason was a bit of a parasite, you thought it was basic decency to have his back. 

Just as you were finished tidying, Dick returned through the elevator, heaving several bags of groceries in both his arms. 

“How was game night?” He smiled at you as you came over to take a few of the bags from him. 

You smiled back, giving him an exaggerated thumbs up with your free hand. 

You knew he had picked up some basic signs in the time of knowing you, but he was nowhere near as fluent as Gar, or even Jason. So you stuck to simple ASL with him, or gave him exaggerated facial expressions. Or just wrote things down on paper or texted like you did with most other people. 

“Good.” His voice held an edge of relief to it. “The four of you should be spending more time together. It’s good for team morale.” 

You felt slightly guilty for lying to him, but you didn’t want to get the others in trouble for something that really wasn’t their fault. He couldn’t force you guys to enjoy spending time together if it wasn’t going to come naturally. 

You put away the groceries in relative silence. Once you had finished folding the reusable bags and putting them away, you were going to escape to your room when Dick caught your attention once again. 

“Um, one more thing.” He said, stopping you in your tracks, making you turn around to face him. You looked at him with curious eyes, and he continued speaking. “It’s probably none of my business, but… is there something going on between you and Gar? You guys used to be like… best friends, and now you hardly ever spend time with him.” 

You felt a dizziness overtake you - that hard drop of your blood pressure from feeling so caught. 

It was like the days when you had first met Gar, when your feelings for him were so bold and unrestrained. And anytime someone mentioned his name around you, you practically melted into a puddle. 

In response to Dick, you simply shrugged. You knew that you looked entirely guilty as your eyes darted around the room - to the counter, the floor, the dull embers in the fire pit - anywhere but at him. 

“Listen, I know this life can be pretty isolating. Especially when you have unique powers. Which is not something I know personally. But I have seen you struggle with it - with using your powers, holding back that unique ability you have when you should be using it and living up to your potential. And I’ve seen Gar help you through it in ways that no one else could.” 

Dick’s words, coming from such a steady and authoritative voice did shock you. You were surprised that he considered your powers to be a ‘unique potential’ - rather than the dangerous, privacy invasion tool that you always saw it as. You were even more surprised to hear that he had observed the ways Gar had helped you when you struggled with the decision to hold back or not, the moral confliction of it all. 

“It’s good to have someone like that. Someone you can rely on. Someone who knows what it’s like. You just… you shouldn’t push him away. You probably need him now more than ever.” 

His words were solid concrete in the otherwise quiet room, weighing down your already heavy heart. 

Even though he had no idea why you had been pushing Gar away, strangely… he was right. You finally looked up to find your mentor’s cold steel gaze staring you down. 

‘Thank you.’ You mouthed the words along with the sign, just in case he didn’t know what it meant. 

He nodded at you, silently releasing you from the conversation. You mindlessly put your hands into the pockets of your sweater as you walked away, and you felt the gentle crinkle of the Twinkie’s wrapper. You decided that you should go visit Gar before you went to bed. 

When you approached his bedroom door, you were surprised to see that it was open. You peered inside, peeking your head around the corner, and you found Gar sprawled out on his bed. His laptop was on his stomach as he stared at the white-blue glow with a bored expression on his face. He was likely studying. Trying this best to. 

You knocked on the open door to make your presence known. He jumped slightly as you broke his concentration, but he quickly recovered from being startled. He sat up fully and put his laptop to the side, the screen still open and casting a glow into the dimly lit room. You didn’t wait for an invitation to come in, and his gaze was drawn to you as you walked into the room, not bothering to shut the door behind you. 

“Y/N. Hey,” He smiled at you, pleasantly surprised that you had come to see him. “Fancy seeing you here.” 

A small twinge of guilt flared in your stomach. 

You felt bad for avoiding him for reasons that weren’t truly his fault. You felt bad for putting a strain on your friendship with him because you couldn’t control your stupid powers. You felt bad that you couldn’t just tell him the truth. 

And a huge part of you felt even worse that you couldn’t control your own lust simply because you knew that he felt somewhat lustful toward you. 

As your eyes glanced at his wide thighs spread out on the bed, even covered by his jeans, your pussy ached. You couldn’t stop thinking about the way those thighs had worked as he thrust his cock in and out of you when he had you pinned to the wall in that fantasy. You hated how your mind was so hyper-focused on something that wasn’t even real. Maybe it was just hotter and more wicked because you knew it was a fantasy of his creation. It drove you more insane because it was something he apparently wanted just as badly as you did. 

Even if you could never tell him you wanted it as badly as he did because of the way you had found out. 

‘I thought you might want this.’ You signed to him. 

Past the hazy fog of your lust clouded thoughts, you remembered why you had come to see Gar in the first place. You took the smashed, pathetic Twinkie out of your pocket and presented it to him with a small grin. 

“Oh thanks!” He was eager to take it from you, ripping open the packaging and taking a bite of the crumbling cake. 

“Yeah, definitely still good.” He assured you with his mouthful, giving you a cheeky smile and a thumbs up. 

You were happy that you had finally done something right. You gave him a small thumbs up in return and went to leave again. But he was quick, abandoning his snack on the bed and jumping up to interrupt your path before you could escape. 

“Y/N, wait. I was hoping we could talk.” He said quietly, his voice full of a strained hope. “I miss you.” 

Even as he pleaded for your attention, your eyes were stuck at your feet. Rather than daring to look up at him, you stared hard at the space where his green socked toes stood in front of yours. You had no clue what exactly was triggering these ‘episodes’ with your powers, but you knew it had something to do with him. You couldn’t risk it, not again. 

You loved how almost all of his clothes were green - a choice he often made because he said it was easier to match his hair the way it now naturally grew from his head. The color would forever remind you of him whenever it came up in life. He had taken everything green in your life and possessed it as his own so that it made you smile whenever you saw it. So that anything green would make you mourn for him long after he had left your life in one way or another. You hated it and loved it at the same time. 

“If I did something wrong, please just tell me. I wanna fix it.” His voice flexed under the weight of his pain. 

It was intensely difficult for you to listen to. 

It sliced through you like a knife. 

Your selfish acts, your uncontrollable, stupid powers and the way you ran from the consequences had somehow convinced him that he had done something wrong. 

Tears pricked your eyes. 

You racked your gaze carefully up his body, and your eyes landed on a piece of vanilla cake crumb that had gotten stuck to his chin from the Twinkie. Just the look of it, something that was so foolish and unserious and so Gar in this very serious moment made you crack a smile. Instinctually, you reached over and brushed it away with your thumb. 

He sighed out a half-breath that could be perceived as a laugh when he realized what you were smiling at. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously at the thought of his own clumsiness. 

‘You have done nothing wrong.’ You assured him, keeping your eyes locked on the wall behind his ear. ‘You never do anything wrong. You’re so good.’ 

“Then what is it?” He pressed. “Will you please just look at me?” 

He used a gentle hand on your chin to force your eyes towards his, and before you could stop it, you were caught up in it again. You were once again sucked into the complicated swell of his beautiful mind. 

But this time it was distinctly different. This time it wasn’t some heated fantasy, wasn’t some painted imagining. 

This was a memory of something that had already happened. It was most definitely a memory you knew well. Although this time it was like you were watching it from the outside - or rather, you were watching it from Gar’s perspective. 

It was a vision of you knelt on the bathroom floor, puking into a toilet. The sounds of your own sickness easily made you cringe. Gar didn’t flinch or feel any disgust though. 

You could feel his emotions like the grooves of a record, carved into the memory and being replayed. All he felt was a great wave of sadness for you. Instinctually, not really knowing what else to do, he reached out and placed a comforting hand on your back as your muscles lurched with another wave of gags, forced by your body’s ill-made systems. 

It was a specific night that you remembered well. 

You had only been in Doctor Caulder’s care for a few weeks at the time, but it had become evident that even though the serum had cured your blindness, your intense migraines and even the occasional seizures caused by your brain tumor still persisted. 

You had crawled to the bathroom with the intention of dealing with your ailments in privacy. But Gar’s room was right next to yours, and he had heard you groaning in pain, had heard you throwing up and gasping for breath because of the pure force of the vomit. 

So he did the only thing he could think to do. He got a glass of water for you to rinse your mouth when you were done, and then he simply sat with you, trying to bring you some comfort in your time of need. He felt hollow and useless as you heaved into the toilet, nothing left in your stomach to give up but bright green stomach bile, your body forcing every last bit of it out as the migraine raged on. 

When the heaving stopped, he pulled you into his lap. He was ready with a warm, damp cloth to put on your forehead, and a towel to wipe your mouth. You relaxed into his calming touch. He bloomed with pride at being able to hold you in his arms, being able to keep you safe, even if he couldn’t heal you from what ailed you. 

‘You can leave.’ You signed to him. 

At the time, he understood it well, even with just a few weeks of studying under his belt. 

A small wave of offense went through him. He didn’t want to leave you. Why would he leave you in such a weak state? He wanted to help you. That’s why he’d gotten out of bed in the first place. 

“I’m not gonna leave.” He told you. “I won’t leave you. Ever.” 

At the time you had been far too sick to really take in the weight of his words. But now, lingering in the memory, you could feel the determination sitting deep in his chest. The affection for you as it swelled inside him, the way he held you just a bit closer. 

You were shocked back to the cold concrete of reality when he gripped your arm in the present, pulling you out of the sweetness of the memory by force. He spoke something that was muffled and full in your ears as you struggled to pull yourself out of the thickness of his clouded mind. The expression on your face must have told him you hadn’t heard him, because he repeated himself. 

“Will you please just tell me what’s wrong?” He demanded, his voice sharp with worry. 

‘Nothing’s wrong.’ You lied, shaking yourself from his grip. ‘I have to go study.’ 

You ran from the room before he could confront you any further. 

Your mind was positively drowning with thoughts about Gar. Did he feel the same way about you? Had he felt the same way about you since the two of you had met? 

Your mind was so clouded that you slammed into your closed bedroom door before you could remember to actually turn the doorknob and open it. It left you cursing internally as you rubbed the sore spot blooming in the middle of your forehead. 

This crush was going to ruin you. 

… 

Unfortunately, you couldn’t easily avoid Gar forever. 

The next day, when Dick was giving out assignments, he paired up you and Gar for sparring practice right before he pulled aside Jason and Rachel for a quiz on the assigned reading material. You tried to wave him down, wanting to protest about having Gar as a partner - but of course, he didn’t read ASL. And he didn’t give you any room to protest as he spouted off about what kind of drills the two of you should be practicing and told you that he would come by in two hours to ‘check-in’ on your progress. 

You wanted to scream. Sometimes, not having a voice truly, utterly sucked. 

You thought perhaps it was Dick’s way of forcing you to make good on the advice he had given you the night before - forcing you to spend time with Gar so that you would stop pushing him away. But it was so damn inconvenient when you still didn’t know what was causing your powers to act up. 

As you walked to the training room, you told yourself again and again that you could bear two hours alone with Gar. Especially because one of the drills that Dick wanted you to practice was blindfolded sparring. That was an easy way not to have your powers flare-up against your will. You told yourself that you needed to get back to normal. You couldn’t have Gar thinking that you hated him - thinking that he was the reason for your strange behavior when he was truly the best, kindest person in your life. 

Well, technically he was the reason for your strange behavior. But not at all in the way he blamed himself for. And you wouldn’t have him thinking that he had fucked up your friendship somehow or pissed you off unintentionally for some reason he couldn’t even name. 

You and Gar exchanged a few words - you agreed that you would wear the blindfold and try to defend against his attacks, and he joked that he would ‘go easy’ on you. It felt delightfully normal between the two of you for a few minutes. 

He gave you one of his perfectly dorky smiles and you felt butterflies in your stomach. Beyond his wildly attractive body, beyond that sexual heat - you remembered why you had fallen for him in the first place. Those boyish charms, that gentle nature that made him so irresistible as a friend and so easy to yearn for as a lover. 

When you put the blindfold on, it felt like a comforting shield against his wild daydreams, trying to buck free from his mind. You both picked up the wooden swords, and when he asked if you were ready, you nodded. 

Unfortunately, you were not exactly on your game. 

Usually, you were quite a skilled fighter. You could keep up with the likes of Jason Todd, who trained night and day just to prove how skilled he was. Your powers gave you slightly honed senses, giving you the ability to hear more acutely, giving you the advantage in a situation like this. 

But that was part of the problem. You were picking up on Gar’s breathing, the heavy panting coming from his lips as he swung the practice sword and started to work up a sweat. Your concentration was clouded by the small grunts he made as he worked his muscles, and the careful, skilled movement of his footfalls as he charged at you. 

He easily landed a few blows - gentle, purposefully light swats - on your arms and torso, and he distinctly noticed you not making any real effort to dodge or fight back. Your mind was too busy churning with the mental image of him sweaty from the effort, imagining those same grunts as he fucked you. 

This crush was going to ruin you. 

Gar stopped his movements, and you relaxed your body, pausing any half-efforts you were making to fight him off. 

“Are you okay?” He asked. “Do you have a migraine or something? Do you need to go lay down?” 

Of course. He was concerned for your well-being. It was something that only made him sweeter, and only made you twinge with guilt at what had been going through your mind. 

‘Fine.’ You responded, performing the sign with one hand, still clutching the practice sword with the other. ‘Keep going.’ 

You heard Gar sigh - clearly somewhat hesitant. 

But then he swung his sword down again, and when you heard it whipping through the air, you made a distinct effort to block it this time. You raised yours up, blocking the blow. He let out a quiet chuckle, pleased now that you were better focused this time around. 

You really tried harder. 

You found yourself blocking his blows, using your own swift footwork, and even then - your unconscious distraction was apparent. 

Usually you were better with your tactile awareness, but as the edge of the mats came under your foot, you didn’t notice. And Gar, ever concerned for your safety, used his non-sword hand to reach out and grab your arm. He quickly yanked you back from the edge in case you tripped and fell. He wouldn’t want you to hit your head on the concrete floor, even if it wouldn’t be a terribly grievous injury. 

But he was pumping with energy from the mock fight, and when he pulled you in, he used far more force than he had intended to. It wasn’t a simple correction of your footing like he intended. He accidentally sent your distracted legs tripping over each other and sent you barreling right into him. With the momentum, you knocked him completely off his legs. You ended up falling right on top of Gar as he landed splayed out on the mats, on his back. 

Gar broke into a gentle laughter, finding the entire thing to be quite amusing. 

His hands naturally found your hips and warmth spread out from there, something that quickly overwhelmed your senses. You dropped your practice sword with a numb hand as you became entirely heated by the feeling of his rock hard body beneath yours. Upon instinct, you reached up, and pulled the blindfold up to rest on your forehead - which turned out to be a terrible mistake. 

In that moment, you came face to face with Gar’s stunning, big brown eyes and you were once again sucked into one of his heated fantasies against your will. 

Unlike the others, this wasn’t a picture you were viewing. It wasn’t something in his mind that you were only seeing from the third perspective. 

No - you were in this. 

Somehow, he had drawn you so deeply into his fantasy this time that you were in it, participating in it, truly feeling it. 

In the daydream, you were sitting on top of him, easily paralleling your current reality.

But in this dreamy version, he was completely naked, and you felt the delightfully throbbing hum of his cock deep inside of you. Because it was just a dream, it wasn’t nearly as distinct as the real thing would have been. But the feeling quickly spread heat through your entire body. Especially when paired with the visuals his imagination had conjured up for you. 

The feeling of his hands on your hips in the real world easily turned into a searing burn that you were sure you could feel on your bare skin. You looked down at him below you, as though you were really straddling his naked body, proudly riding his impressively large cock. His taut muscles rippled under sweaty skin - his abs flexing with the effort, his biceps bulging as he held onto you. 

All of it so enticingly topped off by the sight of his face, his forehead glistening with sweat, stray green hairs stuck to it. The expression he held was almost beautifully pathetic as he struggled with such overwhelming pleasure - his lip snagged between his teeth, his brow heavily creased. Quiet, desperate whimpers escaping from his throat as he guided you to grind on his thickness. 

You let out a sharp moan of your own, desperately aching for breath, and that chugging in your throat was the thing that sucked out of the deep fog of this fantasy. 

When you looked into Gar’s eyes once more, you saw the look of dawning on his face. It was mingled with confusion, but you knew that this time, he had felt it too. He had felt you on a deeper level, and he knew, even if he couldn’t nearly explain it - the two of you had shared that experience on a deeper level. 

And what’s more - out here in the real world, not in some sense of fantasy, you could feel his hardness throbbing against your leg. And it felt just as large and impressive as it was in all those dreams. You knew that your cunt was likely boiling hot against him, giving you away. And though the temptation to lean down and ensnare his mouth was so intense, the temptation to beg him to fuck you right then and there - something inside of you kept chanting:

‘Don’t ruin your friendship. He’s your best friend. Don’t fuck it up.’ 

And somehow, miraculously, fighting against all of your overpowering lust - you listened to that voice. You rushed to get off of him, scrambling off the floor to a standing position on shaking legs. You tried your best to ignore the entirely painful throbbing between your legs as your pussy screamed out for him, for his touch. 

Naturally, Gar thought that he had freaked you out. He thought that the reason you had jumped away from him so fast was because he had a raging hard-on and you were intensely disgusted by it. In his mind, he couldn’t easily see it being the exact opposite reason. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” He rushed to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. My body - my body just - reacted-” 

Gar also rose to his feet, awkwardly tugging at the crotch of his loose workout pants to try and disguise it. You made the mistake of glancing at the tent and visually confirmed that it was just as large as he made it out to be in all of his fantasies (and yours). 

‘It’s fine.’ You sighed to him. 

You were once again making steady eye contact with the floor - trying not to get drawn back into his mind. But it only made Gar feel more awkward, more like he had wronged you. 

Gar’s throat immediately numbed when you turned and left to charge out of the room. You were intensely surprised when you felt his hand on your arm once more - that firm, commanding touch pulling you back once again. 

Wrestling with the embarrassment inside of him was a storm of anger. 

The fact that even now, you were so unwilling to talk to him about any of the problems in your friendship. You just kept brushing him off. It caused a very uncharacteristic flare of annoyed rage inside of him that he just couldn’t swallow down. So with the hand that he wasn’t using to hide his boner, he kept that grip on your arm. He forced you to stay, forcing you to turn back and face him. 

Him asserting himself like that, the show of force over you - oddly enough, it only added to the arousal boiling inside of you. A small whimper escaped from your lips, and you resisted the urge to smack a hand over your mouth in some attempt to hide it. You knew that Gar had definitely heard it when his face shifted from that tense anger to a look of sheer guilt. He thought that the grip on your arm had somehow hurt you. 

“I’m sorry.” He repeated himself, quickly dropping the grip on your arm. He was glad when you stayed of your own volition this time. “But, can you just talk to me? Please?” 

You hated to ignore his pleas, your own guilt curling in your stomach. 

After a moment with no response from you, more anger splashed up inside of him. 

“I hate this.” 

He said quietly, his voice almost breaking under the weight of his pain. 

“I hate how we aren’t close anymore. We don’t talk, we don’t spend time together anymore. I feel like I barely even know you…” 

He quickly gained momentum in his ranting, his words picking up from a dull whisper. You crossed your arms, keeping your eyes on the floor. You knew that you were the perfect target for all of his upset - so you simply took it. 

“This place is changing everyone!” He barked, motioning around wildly to the walls. “I’m living with my best friends and I’ve never felt so damn alone!” 

As his words echoed in the open space, he looked at you with intensely sad eyes, obviously waiting for you to say something - waiting for an apology. 

But any explanation you could give would mean admitting that your powers had gone haywire. It would mean telling him that you had been invading his privacy without permission. It was bound to screw up your friendship and leave him feeling just as alone. You clasped your fists tight, staying entirely still while he waited for an answer. 

“Fine then.” He said quietly, absolutely defeated. 

He was the one to charge away this time, harshly smacking his shoulder against yours in anger. He kicked down a rack of weapons on his way out. 

You hear him let out a harsh, exasperated ‘fuck!’ when he got halfway down the hall. 

At that point, you couldn’t help the tears that escaped as the pain surged through your chest. 

Maybe you had fucked up the friendship in an entirely different way.

...

Keep Reading Here: Part Two - Our Past, Our Present, Our Future

Final note: yes, I used to be @/pinkchubbiebunnie. That is still my username on AO3, and this is my new blog. This is one of my old fics, so please don't accuse me of stealing it if you see this. I have added some new scenes and elements to it (hence, why I have split it up into two parts) so if you recognize me by this fic and if you've read it before, I hope you enjoy re-reading it in its newly improved form. Feel free to follow me if you’re interested in my fanfiction and thoughtful discussions of the media that I enjoy.

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

SU: Isolation is not good

There are many things that make SU unique in the variety of scifi+fantasy settings we have, but I think one of the most important is how it condemns isolation. To explain, in most series where there is the everyday world and the secret fantasy/alien one, one of the most important things is to keep them separate. There might be a few humans in the know, but total exposure is treated as an apocalyptic scenario.

The justifications for this aren't just the fear that the bad guys find the good guys, but just a total fear of what humans might -do- to the supernatural. From intolerance to experiments to outright destruction of the species. Often, it is treated as paramount to stay hidden for eternity. Steven Universe, on the other hand, rejects this mentality entirely. When the series begins, the Crystal Gems intentionally stay away from humanity. While Amethyst and Steven have friends among humanity, for Pearl and Garnet (and her parts) humanity might as well be like any other animal. They aren't malicious, but they also don't really care. Yet, a big deal is made out of the fact that the gems still affect the world around and their presence brings trouble. But they don't really take accountability for it until Steven basically herds them to do so. One aspect this is shown in is how Steven, who is 13, still looks 8 because his time with the ageless gems has made him basically become as stuck in time as they are. It bears also a mention that the humanity in SU is no nicer than we are. Mr.Smiley has to work alone in Funland, money to feed himself and Steven is an issue to Greg, Marty and his BS exist, Sadie's songs are about how awful working as a teenager is and so on. It is only through the slow lowering of the barriers between the gems and humans that both sides start to benefit from one another. Pearl, who has basically been mentally living on borrowed time, becomes much more relaxed as she starts interacting with humanity. Eventually getting actual human friends. Amethyst, who has basically been rootless, gains a sense of place from meeting the Famethyst. Mr. Smiley no longer has to work gruelling hours alone, as the strong quartzes now work for him. When Steven leaves Beach City at the end of Future, the scenes where gems and humans co-exist together serve to show how much he has made the lives of everyone better by creating bridges between the once separate groups.

[jariten]

April 2024 Roundup

A little delayed but I will try to keep it short. Did some quick catch up on stand alones and made some progress on various series. But I couldn't resist the siren call of the anthologies so I just have to mention those.

Dragon Quest The Adventure of Dai I was really delighted to see licensed but when it dropped I forgot about it.... Or had to put it off for money reasons, I forget. But with a sweet discount code I finally grabbed all 5 volumes of part 1: Disciples of Avan starring the plucky Dai who was raised by monsters freed from the control of the evil lord who was defeated by the Hero and his party. Riku Sanjo's art also goes really well with Akira Toriyama's monster designs while overall having an identity of its own. With a story unique from the games it doesn't just feel like a quick buck manga tie on the game series but a representative work in RPG style fantasy manga from the 1980s and a great read for anyone who wants to be more familiar with manga from that decadeUnfortunately only 5 of 25 volumes of this edition are out for reasons Viz has not publicly disclosed so I will refrain from speculating. But it was comforting to know that Viz's release isn't the only international edition in limbo. Hopefully something gets worked out in the near future.

Okinawa by Susumu Higa also had a long and rocky path to the store shelves. I pre-ordered it I think in 2019 then that was cancelled, then the translation got a digital release then the print version was back on then, finally, in 2023 I saw it in stores. Finally read it and its a great companion to Shigeru Mizuki's Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths as a wartime criticism of the Japanese army, while the second part serving as a commentary and look into the recent history of Okinawa as a region still existing under soft occupation of the United States army.

Megami Tachi to (With Goddesses) is an anthology of stories written by Katsuo Kawai adapted by various female manga artists. I'm not familiar with his work so I won't go on to describe his style and oeuvre but the involvement of Yamaji Ebine made me want to check it out (her story is about a woman put in charge of taking care of a shrine and its kami, which turns out to be the bare empty basement of an apartment complex). I really liked the variety of stories taking place across various time periods and locations and how each manga artist's own individual styles stood out with the absurdist scripts. And to keep to the collaborative spirit while making his own contribution Kawai himself drew a story based on a script by movie director Satoko Yokohama about the day in the life of an old actor. Was also delighted to find out this collection contained the pro debut work of Yuriko Hara, who'd go on to make Cocoon Entwined!

Wakaba no Rhapsody is a companion to Hana to Waltz, two anthologies highlighting the new talents in the magazines Asuka and Aokishi. The big name draw is Kaoru Mori but I was very impressed by the artistic prowess of all the featured artists, whose impact was heightened by the HUGE trim size of the volumes. Featured in both volumes was Akira Shouno whose one shot collection Good Night Field I read last year and was very fascinated by. Especially the recurring immortal vampire and the yukionna he regularly visits. Really hoping the rest of the featured artists get their own one shot collection in the near future, but while waiting for those I might check out some of their long form series.

[quirkwizard]

Hey QuirkWizard! You have quite a few Quirks that produce a unique type of plant. As such, if you got isekaid into MHA, which Quirks would you want and why if you were going to try to become a hero at U.A? The Quirks are Solar Flower, Panic Plant, Sprout, Fruition, Magic Beans, Look Out, Red Roots, Overgrowth, Budding, and Seed Shot. Can’t wait to see your response! Also if you have the time it would be cool if you could also do it for if you were just planning to be a civilian!

How would you create a quirk based on the concept of seeds?

What an oddly specific type of Quirk. Still, I do enjoy talking about what Quirks I would like to have. For the sake of this, though I try to keep the discussion to seed based Quirks, so no "Grow Up" or "Garden", and I'll mention these from the perspective of a civilian, as a UA student, and as an established hero as appropriate. And right off the bad, I'm removing "Panic Plant" and "Red Roots". It's honestly hard to think of ways to use those Quirks that would be helpful and don't make me look like a super villain .

Seed Shot: On paper, this would be an affective option for hero work given that sheer variety of seeds that the user can make. And while I do think experimenting with the seeds could be fun, I ultimately think it's too offensively focused for my tastes. Plus that level of experimenting could get old fast.

Magic Beans: I would be tempted to take this option if I wanted to be a hero, especially at UA. They really don't have a healer and that is extremely valuable role to have since they're so sparse. Though realistically, there is no way I'd be able to keep up with all the shenanigans of Class 1-A with such narrow and group oriented power.

Budding: This could be rather useful in hero work. If the whole point is to do as little damage as possible, there is a lot of value in ending a fight before it even starts. Though it's a bit too passive for my preferences and it's overall going to requiring more setup then a lot of heroes or civilians would have use for.

Look Out: Besides me enjoying the fantasy of throwing out turrets to fight people, I think that this has enough options that that it can be varied as it is while still having room for growth. Sure, it's still pretty offensively focused, but it can still be used for defensive and security reasons, both in hero and civilian life.

Overgrowth: If I was purely going for the best hero possible barring personal preference, this might be the option. Being able to sprout out massively pillars of wood from any location, which you can then shape, would be immensely useful given the convivence of it and the variety of ways you can shape something like wood.

Fruition: This is like the middle ground between "Seed Shot" and "Magic Beans". It's a much needed support option for Class 1-A and other heroes, but there is enough variety in it that I can keep growing and evolving it as the story goes on and can more easily adapt to whatever the story has to throw at me.

Solar Flower: I could see this being useful for hero work or my own civilian life. On the one hand, it'd be a nice defensive ability that could be extremely valuable in disaster areas where power is scare. On the other hand, I don't want to pay for my own electricity and I get bragging rights for being so supportive of green energy.

Sprout: This is another one that could go either way with. I like the idea of just having this pure utility power that would keep me as far away from the fight as possible and only be of use in more support roles like information gathering and rescue work. Plus they would just be so fun to have around as little helpers around the house.

[littleelephanty]

Are you and your bf equals? I often see kinky people round here who say that woman and men should never be equals or that a dom and a sub are never equals and more in a perent-child-relationship. I do watch a lot of porn, especially bdsm related and love the ideas of power imbalance but I still wish for a girlfriend who is my partner in a really partnershipway... Can you say smth to that?

I've had your ask in my inbox for a while now. I happened to read a text the day before yesterday about vanilla relationships, in which there is also a form of dependency that the author of the text perceived as very dangerous.

That's why I'm replying now. In any case, thank you for the interesting question. Yes, I would say that my bf and I are equal partners. However, I wouldn't say that we never have the parent-child relationship with each other that you mentioned in your comment. It's more of a variety in those roles, even if I'm not Switch. I'm often a bit of a baby. And then he takes care of me. When it comes to sex, he's also the one with the power. But I'm also often in charge, I make a lot of decisions for our lives and especially for mine, I comfort him too… There are times when he behaves childishly and irresponsibly and I'm the person who gives him security and slips into the role of mother - but only for a few moments. This also happens the other way round, when I act naive, simply because I enjoy it when he takes care of me and gives me security. We also have very adult and mature conversations with each other, we both have an overview of financial and health issues and questions about the future. I am more rational in a way… but sometimes he's more rational too. We complement each other quite well.

But I also know people who opt for a tpe/power imbalance relationship. In which the roles never change or equalise. I can hardly imagine that they never have conversations with each other like normal couples, but apparently there are couples who decide that for themselves.

It doesn't quite make sense to me how you manage to secure yourself in these types of relationships, as there is a great dependency that prevents you from changing your mind. I think that's dangerous too, but I don't necessarily see it as impossible to have a healthy and fulfilling relationship like that - for some people it's the right thing to do. But - here's a big but - I don't necessarily see the roles as being distributed in such a way that the dominant partner is always male. I see lgbtqai+ couples and also hetero couples who do flr, for example, and it works very well. So I'm a feminist and I do think that the dominant partner can also be the woman. That's different from the patriachy people here (not that I would sometimes masturbate to such posts… but only in my imagination!)

That also leads me straight to porn. Just because you enjoy porn that has this kind of content doesn't mean that you want to live out this tendency in real life. Of course you can - and then you can also have a partner that you love and with whom you can be on an equal footing. But porn/fantasy is different from reality.

I think your reflectiveness is good! Keep thinking about how you can keep your priorities and values so that they don't get lost in the tumblr swirl.

[ladyirisreviews]

Final Fantasy (PSP) - Review

Final Fantasy is a series I was never interested in while growing up, I only decided to check it out because of the endless talk about how Final Fantasy 7 was the best RPG ever made, and when I tried it I did so trying to find stuff to dislike about it.

Because I was such a little hater back then.

After FF7 I also tried other games in the series and I even liked some aspects of them, and also hated some of them, but now it's been years since I played the first few, so I decided to go from the beginning all the way to FFX with an open mind, not trying to hate on the games, and see what I think about them.

So here we are at the start, Final Fantasy 1, I went with the PSP version because I am just not brave enough to play the original NES version, and I was broke to get the Pixel Remaster.

Besides, I always wanted to try this one because I didn't know it existed when I played the GBA version back then, only after I was done with that version I learned about the PSP one.

The plot is very simple, the land is decaying, but a legend speaks of 4 heroes of light that will return the world to a state of balance, and these 4 heroes are the ones you create.

There's not much else to the plot, you have to speak to townspeople to learn of your objectives, and basically, the game progression is that, but repeated over and over, getting stuff to get over obstacles until you arrive at the final dungeon to kick some butt.

And that's why I'll leave it at that and move on to the gameplay.

As I already mentioned, you make your 4 characters, though the only customization you get to make is picking a name and their class.

You get to pick between: Warrior, Thief, Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, and Red Mage.

Warriors, Thieves, and Monks serve as physical attackers, with warriors having the best defense, Thieves the best agility, and Monks the best attack.

The White, Black, and Red Mages are your magic users, White Mages specializing in protective and curative magic, Black Mages in offensive magic, and Red Mages having access to both, though not having access to some of the better spells.

And once you create your party, it's exploring time.

By spawning you right under a city and a castle you are encouraged to check them both out before starting to explore the rest of the world, and there you learn a lot of things that direct you on your journey, so it serves as a tutorial while also letting you know what to do next, which is ingenious design for the time it was created.

And even if you don't, the rest of the world is blocked off until you clear the initial objective.

You will quickly learn that you need to purchase spells, if you have any spellcasters, and spells are divided into several levels, with your characters being able to learn only 3 of each level.

This very deliberate limitation forces you to think of what you value more in fights, do you prefer having a wide variety of attacking spells, debuffs, buffs, or healing ones?

Though to be clear I found debuff spells and ailment-inducing spells to be mostly useless since they mostly don't work on bosses, and the normal enemies aren't that big of a threat to waste a turn on debuffing them.

It is still nice you get the option to pick your playstyle with spellcasters though.

The characters that aren't spellcasters are not very complicated, you just equip them with their preferred weapons, or no weapons for the monk, and just have them attack, their strength is their stats, and not their abilities.

The gameplay loop is pretty simple, you will learn from villages around the map of characters or places scattered around the world, and mention certain items that might do something, so your goal is meeting those characters, listening to them, and extrapolating what you might need to give them or what you need to do to advance in the game.

Despite being an elaborate fetch quest, it's quite fun to travel around the world almost aimlessly, talking to every NPC and checking every nook and cranny of the world map, it doesn't feel like a chore to explore it.

The bosses can actually be pretty challenging, though they can be trivialized later on in the game with the right spells, but they can be beaten with any strategy and they don't become too easy or too hard, which is great.

I do have to mention a big difference between this release and the original and pixel remaster, this release uses MP for spells, instead of the magic charges the original and pixel remaster uses.

What this means is that magic is way more plentiful in this game, like waaaaay more plentiful.

The way I saw charges being described is the following: You get a number of charges dedicated to a level of spell, say you have 3 charges for level 1 spells and 2 for level 2 spells, when you use a level 1 spell, a level 1 charge is used, so after that you are left with 2 level 1 charges and 2 level 2 charges.

It's pretty simple, but the amount of charges is quite limited in comparison to the MP you get in the game.

I mentioned some bosses get trivialized with some spells, these are buff spells for your party. Because there's a lot of MP, you can spam them for your best attacker, but with charges you have to keep in mind that if you spam it, you run the risk of not being able to use any spell from that level, which adds more strategy to the game.

Having said this, I can't actually comment on the balancing of magic because I haven't played a version that uses it, I just wanted to let you know that the version I played is very different from the original and Pixel Remaster.

Despite being a kind of simple game overall, Final Fantasy 1 could be considered half of the reason RPGs exploded in popularity in Japan, the other half being Dragon Quest, of course.

What Final Fantasy brought to the table when comparing it to Dragon Quest was flying vehicles and the ability to pick the roles of your characters, which clearly impacted the genre forever, with the flying vehicles being almost like a requirement for quite a lot of RPGs out there.

Also, even the original version of the game had a map, which does wonders in helping exploring the world.

But I did mention exploring aimlessly previously, that totally isn't because when I played it for the first time I didn't know you had a map for 80% of the game and felt stupid when I randomly figured it out.

Anyway-

Something new to the PSP version are the Souls of Chaos dungeons, these are extra dungeons that get unlocked after defeating major bosses, they provide an extra challenge, but I can't really speak too much about them, as I decided to skip them for now.

I will, however, be replaying this version of the game in the near future to do everything I skipped, and I will also play the Pixel Remaster version eventually to really know how much the balance changes with magic charges as opposed to MP.

And finally, all modern versions of Final Fantasy 1 let you save anywhere, which I really appreciate in RPGs.

So yeah, there's no doubt this is a very important game for the genre, and despite its age, I still find enjoyment in it.

It has aged pretty well in my opinion. The new arrangement of the music is very good, and it also has some killer sprite work. I really enjoyed my time with it for the second time, and it is still a game I would recommend to any RPG fan.