#brain exercises to improve concentration

[roshni99]

Ready to harness the power of yoga for unparalleled focus? Let's dive in! 🌠 #FocusWithYoga#UnlockYourPotential#MindfulnessMagic#ConcentrationBoost#YogaJourneyBegins#FindYourFocus 🌿 improve your concentration and focus improve your concentration improve your concentration and memory how to improve your concentration in studies how to improve your concentration and focus in studies how to improve your concentration power how to improve your concentration and focus at work how to improve your concentration in kannada how to improve your concentration skills improve my concentration how to improve your concentration in tamil how to improve your concentration and focus in telugu improve the concentration how to improve your concentration while studying yoga for concentration,yoga,improve concentration,asanas to improve your concentration,concentration,improve memory and concentration,yoga asanas,yoga for concentration and memory,exercises to improve concentration,brain exercises to improve concentration,yoga for beginners,yoga asanas for improving concentration,yoga for mental health,asanas to improve your creativity,yoga improving concentration,yoga for improving concentrationSHOW LESS

[myfitnessteacher]

Brain | 9 Exercises for Brain To Improve Memory And Focus

Brain Gym exercises are activities that improve function. These exercises support learning and communication skills, improve your child's memory, academic performance and attention, and help maintain a healthy lifestyle. Read More

[nicolanlang]

Memory Improvement Techniques That Actually Work

Introduction Improving memory isn’t just about remembering where you left your keys or the name of that colleague from another department. It’s about enhancing your overall mental fitness and paving the way for stronger cognitive abilities. Not to mention, it’s an asset that becomes invaluable as you age. From simple daily tasks to complex professional challenges, an improved memory can make a…

[borderlinebastard]

what “feeling better” can look like after using a coping technique:

beng able to get up and walk around safely

thinking/talking more clearly and lessening of brain fog

a willingness to re-engage with a situation/emotion (even with some reluctance)

ability to do a task you did not want to/could not do before

being able to plan and problem solve (even if you still don’t know what to do)

improved concentration/focus

more understanding of a situation

calmer and slower thoughts (rather than scattered thoughts/rumination)

slower heartbeat and breathing

faster heartbeat, if doing exercise, and momentum that gives you a chance to do a task before you sit down again

being able to sleep easier

an ability to look at the big picture and not get lost in the details

feeling that you can “manage”

ability to control outbursts/destructive behaviour or pause before acting

managing to stop crying

I think people tend to assume their mood is what will improve after trying coping techniques, however, your mood is not the full extent of your mental health, and it doesn’t totally define whether or not a technique has helped you. When disorders cause symptoms like chronic emptiness and low mood, it’s worthwhile to pay attention to your body and your abilities to look for signs of improvement, which can then have an affect on your mood in the long term.

[theambitiouswoman]

Superfoods you should incorporate in your diet:

Superfoods are nutrient-dense foods that are considered beneficial for your health due to their high concentration of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other beneficial compounds.

Combine these superfoods with a variety of other whole foods to ensure you're getting a wide range of nutrients. Also, be mindful of portion sizes and any individual dietary restrictions or allergies you may have.

Berries: Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and other berries are rich in antioxidants, fiber, and vitamins.

Leafy greens: Spinach, kale, Swiss chard, and other leafy greens are packed with vitamins, minerals, and fiber. They are low in calories and provide important nutrients like vitamin K, vitamin C, and folate.

Cruciferous vegetables: Broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage are part of the cruciferous vegetable family. They contain compounds that may help reduce the risk of certain cancers.

Nuts and seeds: Almonds, walnuts, chia seeds, flaxseeds, and hemp seeds are excellent sources of healthy fats, protein, fiber, and various vitamins and minerals.

Fish: Fatty fish like salmon, sardines, and mackerel are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which are beneficial for heart health and brain function.

Whole grains: Quinoa, brown rice, oats, and whole wheat are examples of whole grains that provide fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

Legumes: Beans, lentils, chickpeas, and other legumes are high in fiber, protein, and various nutrients. They are also a good source of plant-based protein.

Turmeric: This spice contains curcumin, a compound with potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

Green tea: Green tea is rich in antioxidants called catechins and is believed to have various health benefits, including improved brain function and a lower risk of certain diseases.

Dark chocolate: Dark chocolate with a high cocoa content (70% or higher) is a source of antioxidants and may have positive effects on heart health and mood.

Avocado: Avocados are rich in healthy fats, fiber, and various vitamins and minerals. They also provide a good source of potassium.

Greek yogurt: Greek yogurt is a protein-rich food that also contains beneficial probiotics, calcium, and vitamin B12.

Sweet potatoes: Sweet potatoes are packed with vitamins, minerals, and fiber. They are an excellent source of beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in the body.

Garlic: Garlic contains sulfur compounds that have been associated with potential health benefits, including immune support and cardiovascular health.

Ginger: Ginger has anti-inflammatory properties and is commonly used to aid digestion and relieve nausea.

Seaweed: Seaweed, such as nori, kelp, and spirulina, is a rich source of minerals like iodine, as well as antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids.

Pomegranate: Pomegranates are packed with antioxidants and are believed to have anti-inflammatory properties. They are also a good source of vitamin C and fiber.

Cacao: Raw cacao is the purest form of chocolate and is rich in antioxidants, flavonoids, and minerals. It can be enjoyed as nibs, powder, or in dark chocolate form.

Quinoa: Quinoa is a gluten-free grain that provides a complete source of protein, along with fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

Extra virgin olive oil: Olive oil is a healthy fat option, particularly extra virgin olive oil, which is high in monounsaturated fats and antioxidants.

Chia seeds: Chia seeds are a great source of fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, and antioxidants. They can be added to smoothies, yogurt, or used as an egg substitute in recipes.

Beets: Beets are rich in antioxidants and are known for their vibrant color. They also contain nitrates, which have been shown to have beneficial effects on blood pressure and exercise performance.

Matcha: Matcha is a powdered form of green tea and is known for its high concentration of antioxidants. It provides a calm energy boost and can be enjoyed as a tea or added to smoothies and baked goods.

Algae: Algae, such as spirulina and chlorella, are nutrient-dense foods that are rich in protein, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. They are often consumed in powdered or supplement form.

Fermented foods: Fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, and kombucha are rich in beneficial probiotics that support gut health and digestion.

Maca: Maca is a root vegetable native to the Andes and is often consumed in powdered form. It is known for its potential hormone-balancing properties and is commonly used as an adaptogen.

Goji berries: Goji berries are small red berries that are rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. They can be enjoyed as a snack or added to smoothies and oatmeal.

Hemp seeds: Hemp seeds are a great source of plant-based protein, healthy fats, and minerals like magnesium and iron. They can be sprinkled on salads, yogurt, or blended into smoothies.

Moringa: Moringa is a nutrient-dense plant that is rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. It is often consumed as a powder or used in tea.

Mushrooms: Certain mushrooms, such as shiitake, reishi, and maitake, have immune-boosting properties and are rich in antioxidants. They can be cooked and added to various dishes.

[nasa]

For the Benefit of All: Assistive Tech Developed from NASA Tech

What do modern cochlear implants and robotic gloves have in common? They were derived from NASA technology. We’ve made it easier to find and use our patented inventions that could help create products that enhance life for people with disabilities.

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month, which highlights the contributions of American workers with disabilities – many of whom use assistive technology on the job. Take a look at these assistive technologies that are NASA spinoffs.

Low-Vision Headsets

The Joint Optical Reflective Display (JORDY) device is a headset that uses NASA image processing and head-mounted display technology to enable people with low vision to read and write. JORDY enhances individuals’ remaining sight by magnifying objects up to 50 times and allowing them to change contrast, brightness, and display modes. JORDY's name was inspired by Geordi La Forge, a blind character from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” whose futuristic visor enabled him to see.

Cochlear Implants

Work that led to the modern cochlear implant was patented by a NASA engineer in the 1970s. Following three failed corrective surgeries, Adam Kissiah combined his NASA electronics know-how with research in the Kennedy Space Center technical library to build his own solution for people with severe-to-profound hearing loss who receive little or no benefit from hearing aids. Several companies now make the devices, which have been implanted in hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Robotic Gloves

Ironhand, from Swedish company Bioservo Technologies, is the world’s first industrial-strength robotic glove for factory workers and others who perform repetitive manual tasks. It helps prevent stress injuries but has been especially warmly received by workers with preexisting hand injuries and conditions. The glove is based on a suite of patents for the technology developed by NASA and General Motors to build the hands of the Robonaut 2 humanoid robotic astronaut.

Smart Glasses

Neurofeedback technology NASA originally developed to improve pilots’ attention has been the basis for products aimed at helping people manage attention disorders without medication. The devices measure brainwave output to gauge attention levels according to the “engagement index” a NASA engineer created. Then, they show the results to users, helping them learn to voluntarily control their degree of concentration. One such device is a pair of smart glasses from Narbis, whose lenses darken as attention wanes.

Anti-Gravity Treadmills

A NASA scientist who developed ways to use air pressure to simulate gravity for astronauts exercising in space had the idea to apply the concept for the opposite effect on Earth. After licensing his technology, Alter-G Inc. developed its anti-gravity G-Trainer treadmill, which lets users offload some or all of their weight while exercising. The treadmills can help people recover from athletic or brain injuries, and they allow a safe exercise regimen for others with long-term conditions such as arthritis.

Wireless Muscle Sensors

Some of the most exciting assistive technologies to spin off may be yet to come. Delsys Inc. developed electromyographic technology to help NASA understand the effects of long-term weightlessness on astronauts’ muscles and movements. Electromyography detects and analyzes electrical signals emitted when motor nerves trigger movement. Among the company’s customers are physical therapists developing exercise routines to help patients recover from injuries. But some researchers are using the technology to attempt recoveries that once seemed impossible, such as helping paralyzed patients regain movement, letting laryngectomy patients speak, and outfitting amputees with artificial limbs that work like the real thing.  

To further enhance the lives of people with disabilities, NASA has identified a selection of patented technologies created for space missions that could spur the next generation of assistive technology here on Earth.

Want to learn more about assistive technologies already in action? Check out NASA Spinoff to find products and services that wouldn’t exist without space exploration.   

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[prettieinpink]

hey can u give tips on improving ur attention span?

INCREASING YOUR ATTENTION SPAN

DAILY MEDITATION. Meditation is known for increasing focus and concentration. Try to increase the minutes you meditate each day, limiting the number of times your mind wanders/

DRINK BLACK TEA. Black tea contains L-theanine which affects the part of your mind which helps with focusing. 

LIMIT DISTRACTIONS, especially those around you. Phones, TV, background noise, or bustling scenery are not the best features for a productive session. A calm, quiet, minimalist area is ideal. 

TAKING SHORT BREAKS BETWEEN. Your brain needs time to recharge and refocus on the task at hand. Some ideas are taking a short walk, meditating, reading. 

START DOCUMENTING THE TIMES WHEN YOUR MIND WANDERS. This helps you to be more aware of anything that may need to change. E.g my mind wanders more in the afternoon than at night, so I’ll do most of my work in the afternoon. 

REGULAR EXERCISE. When there’s more blood in the brain, our concentration increases, so be sure to find ways to get your body moving and blood pumping. 

CREATE A MINIMALIST WORKSPACE. Remove distracting decor, add reminders of anything productive and make it comfortable enough that you focus for long periods. 

[painted-bees]

I decided to take up teaching myself piano for funsies, and...4 days in, I am enjoying myself. Autistic rambling behind the cut lmao

I've got the layout of the keys committed to memory, and I can find notes, [major]scales, and chords very easily (patterns!!). So--I'm dumping all my concentrated effort right now into building hand independence, and it would be feeling nearly sisyphean if I didn't know how brains worked. I'm still struggling to play through a five note scale with both hands at different paces [one playing in half notes, the other playing in quarter notes.] Literally the most basic of the basic exercises...but I figure there's no point getting much fancier than this until I can do it with some relatively clean consistency, and at a good tempo. It's brain neuropathway stuff--so really, so long as I take my time[extremely slow lmao] to be clean and accurate, I should be able to do it faster and faster as the days go by. And then once it feels like a relatively easy exercise [rather than something that blends my brain into soup], I can introduce some more difficulty.

I'm kinda curious to see how long it take to build the skill. Not even learning how to play songs, just learning how to make my hands and fingers move independantly, deliberately, to a set tempo. That shit's SO HARD lmao I thought I would graduate past this first exercise in a couple days, but it's gonna take...a bit longer. I can tell I am improving, though, because it takes less time for me to stop tripping up each time I sit down. Can't hold a steady tempo just yet tho, no matter how slow.

When I'm not doing that, I'm just playing around with random chords and trying to figure out why certain combos sound so good, and why others don't. And it really is all just...patterns. Which is cool! The theory side of things is making a lot more sense to me than I expected it to, and I really like it.

Anyways, I've been hammering on this thing a lot, since I only just got it and the novelty has me captivated. Like...a couple hours each day. I recon that'll slow down once the novelty wears, but I hope I never lose interest completely. So long as I can sit down and practise consciously for half an hour each day, I figure it'll get me to a point eventually where I can produce something that resembles...music lmao

we'll see, I guess. The exercises are actually fun to do tho...which is more than I can say for drawing 😂

[myadhdchronicles]

Navigating Life with ADHD: My Journey, Tips, and Hacks

Living with ADHD has its unique challenges, but it's also a journey filled with creativity, resilience, and countless small victories. I've learned to embrace my ADHD and discovered some invaluable tips, hints, and hacks along the way. In this blog, I'll share my personal insights and strategies that have made life with ADHD more manageable and even exciting.

1. Embrace Your ADHD:

Accepting your ADHD is the first step to managing it effectively. It's a part of who you are, and that's okay.

Learn about your specific strengths and weaknesses associated with ADHD. You might be exceptionally creative or have hyperfocus superpowers!

2. Create a Structured Routine:

Establishing a daily routine can provide a sense of stability and predictability.

Use digital calendars, planners, and reminders to keep track of appointments, tasks, and deadlines. I particularly like Sunsama, it is very ADHD-friendly. Habitica is good too, it is a gamified digital calendar that engages the ADHD brain much better than regular planners.

3. Prioritize and Set Goals:

ADHD brains can easily get overwhelmed by too many tasks. Prioritize your to-do list and break tasks into smaller, manageable goals.

Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small.

4. Minimize Distractions:

Create a dedicated workspace that's free from distractions.

Consider using noise-canceling headphones, fidget toys, or white noise to maintain focus.

Learn what kind of workspace works best for you, it's not the same for every ADHD brain.

5. Time Management Techniques:

Use the Pomodoro Technique (working in short, focused bursts with breaks) to stay on track.

Set timers for tasks to prevent hyperfocus and procrastination.

6. Medication and Therapy:

Consult a medical professional to discuss medication options.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy can help you develop coping strategies and improve executive functioning skills, but know your own ADHD brain because it does not work for all of them.

7. Mindfulness and Meditation:

Mindfulness practices can help you stay present and reduce anxiety.

Try meditation to improve concentration and self-awareness.

Meditation and mindfulness do not have to be the typical sit still and clear your-mind things they are for non-ADHD brains, for a lot of ADHD brains we need to move so something like knitting/crocheting, going for a walk, or sitting outside in nature with your dog are our forms of mindfulness and meditation.

8. Stay Organized:

Use color coding, labels, and file systems to keep your physical and digital spaces organized.

Daily checklists can be a game-changer.

Know your own ADHD brain and make your system one that works for your brain or organization will continue to be a struggle.

9. Don't Fear Mistakes:

It's okay to make mistakes. Learn from them and keep moving forward.

Perfectionism can be your enemy; aim for progress, not perfection.

Learn to let good enough be good enough, perfection does not exist.

10. Get Adequate Sleep and Exercise:

Prioritize good sleep hygiene; it can significantly impact your ADHD symptoms.

Regular physical activity can boost focus and mood.

11. Utilize ADHD-Related Apps:

Explore ADHD-focused apps designed to help with time management, organization, and focus.

Some popular options include Todoist, Forest, Trello, Clarify ADHD, Sunsama, and Fabulous.

12. Seek Support and Community:

Connect with others who have ADHD through support groups or online forums.

Share your experiences and learn from the journeys of others.

Living with ADHD doesn't mean you're destined to struggle. By embracing your uniqueness and applying these tips, hints, and hacks, you can take control of your life. ADHD has its challenges, but it can also be a source of creativity, innovation, and unique perspectives. Remember, you're not alone, and there's a vibrant community of people who understand and support you on this journey. Embrace your ADHD, and together, we can navigate the world with success and resilience. See you next time, ADHD Team!

[hello-kitty101]

Self-Improvement: How to Increase your Intelligence

Word Games:

Word games make you recall information quickly and accurately, making it an excellent way to improve your memory.

Word games make players come up with new words and learn their meaning; this helps build a larger vocabulary.

By challenging yourself to come up with new words, you will boost your overall creativity.

Sharpen Your Problem-Solving Skills through thinking critically.

De-stress and Relax: They're fun, relaxing, and engaging.

Improve Your Concentration by focusing for long periods of time.

Give Your Brain a Boost via memory, vocabulary, creativity, and problem-solving skills.

Puzzles:

Improved Memory:

Better Problem-Solving Skills

Increased IQ

Delay Dementia and Alzheimer’s

Improved Mood

Lower Stress Levels

Increased Attention to Detail

Increased Productivity

Chess:

1. Helps you with focusing skills

2. Improves memory

3. Improves planning skills

4. Helps ADHD

5. Decision making/problem solving

Benefits of Trivia Games:

1. Improve memory

2. Reduce stress

3. Improve problem-solving skills

Neglect Technology/Social Media:

1. Reduce stress

2. Allows you to focus on gratitude

3. Reduces feelings of being “lonely.”

Question, Don't Assume/Think Philosophically: Questioning everything fosters critical thinking, helps uncover hidden truths, promotes personal growth, and encourages a deeper understanding of the world around us. It challenges assumptions, stimulates curiosity, and can lead to more informed and thoughtful perspectives.

Hang Out with People Who Are Smarter: This is self-explanatory.

Get Some Physical Exercise:

Regular physical activity improves brain health and cognitive function.

Read Frequently:

Reading frequently offers numerous benefits, including expanding ones knowledge, improving vocabulary, enhancing critical thinking skills, reducing stress, and fostering empathy by sharing diverse perspectives. It also stimulates the brain, boosts creativity, and provides a valuable source of entertainment and relaxation.

Watch Ted Talks / Educational Videos:

1. They encourage critical thinking.

2. Help develop public speaking skills.

3. Improves listening skills.

4. Widens knowledge.

5. Encourages questions and discussion.

Manage Diet:

The brain requires proper nutrients to function well like omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals support cognitive functions, memory, and overall brain health.

Manage Stress/Anxiety:

Managing stress is beneficial for intelligence because stress/anxiety can negatively impact cognitive functions and hurt ones memory.

To reduce stress/anxiety, practice gratitude and mindfulness to focus on the present rather than dreading on the past and worrying about the future.

Meditation Increases IQ

Meditators scored 20% higher on an IQ test and also were able to perform better under pressure.

Exercise

Question Everything No Matter What

Surround yourself with Intelligent People

When listening to an audio, Take Notes on the Important Parts so You Will Remember it Better.

Re-Teach what you Learned

[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

If you want to be notified whenever I post a new fic (including improved reposts of my older fics) then make sure you go over and follow my library blog @sundropslibrary and turn on notifications there.

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.

[saintsenara]

SORRY I KNOW ITS WEIRD ASKING A HP TUMBLR BLOG FOR LIFE ADVICE BUT IM SO CURIOUS HOW DO YOU MANAGE YOUR TIME

this is a genuine answer.

i think it's very important for there to be no doubt about the fact that - without medication - i would be fucked. there are plenty of non-medical ways of helping to manage adhd, but stimulant medication is the frontline treatment for a reason - no matter what the latest moral panic says. you cannot girlboss your way out of having an incurable neurological condition - and i will be honest that the few people in my life who think that you can are also the few people in my life i consider to be actively contemptible.

time management starts and ends with easily having executive function - and "easily" is the operative word. i can - of course - survive without medication - but i do so while stalked by a constant state of nervous energy which is just exhausting. not least because it ruins my sleep.

[the experience of realising that - no - you're not semi-nocturnal, you've just never before been properly calm the first time you take your pills... exquisite.]

and when i'm in the state of relative normality that legal amphetamine use brings, i manage my time by...

1. wearing a watch

no checking the time on my phone - i'll just get distracted by scrolling.

2. setting huge numbers of alarms

beat time-blindness with this one weird trick.

bonus points - if you're someone who finds it hard to switch between tasks or gets stuck hyper-focusing on things, then set the alarm and then put the device it's on far enough away from you that you have to move in order to turn it off.

3. putting everything on the wall

if you are dopamine-challenged, the best tip i can give you is that you are deluding yourself if you think you can use normal diaries/planners/to-do lists. this is why you probably have cupboards full of them.

stick everything on the wall, where you can see it, and set it up in a way that you can easily move tasks around [i.e. by using a whiteboard you can erase, or sticking your planner inside a plastic wallet and writing on it, or by having everything on sticky notes you can move around].

numbered task lists [i have to do x first, then move onto y] are a no-go - because if you don't do x, then you won't move onto y. but having groups of tasks - organised by urgency or difficulty, for example - which are right there in front of you can be selected from work much better with the adhd brain.

4. being a shark

by which i mean, being constantly on the move. desk chairs are the enemy. never sit still.

if you have adhd - and, to be frank, even if you don't - you will find that doing something physical while you need to concentrate on a task improves your ability to focus on that task. it also helps with managing time-blindness, task-switching, hyper-focus which is to the detriment of what you're supposed to be doing, and being easily distracted.

when i'm at work i literally never sit down. i use a standing desk [which, if you have a diagnosis of adhd and you're uk-based, counts as a reasonable adjustment your employer has to provide for you, fyi], and i have an under-desk treadmill [which i had to pay for myself, which i do not regret in the slightest] for tasks which really need a lot of effort to power through.

at home, i have an adjustable desk which i use as a standing desk or which i sit at while using an under-desk bike [which i use when i'm likely to get stuck hyper-focusing on something and need not to be - like if i'm writing fic but i need to meet up with friends at a certain time - because it's really uncomfortable and it therefore compels me to get up] or an exercise ball [the effort of not falling off really helps with concentration].

obviously, these types of movement are possible for me because i'm not physically disabled - it will look different for everyone, but any level of physical movement [including using fidget toys] helps with time management by improving focus.

5. body-doubling

this is a classic adhd-and-productivity thing, which means having someone physically with you while you work. they're not there to supervise you [or indeed to engage with you at all] - they're working on their own things - but the way that the adhd brain is primed for pattern recognition [and is very good at mimicry] means that you end up falling into the same rhythm as the other person.

if you need to complete something in a finite amount of time, then having someone you can body-double with is really useful, because you're less likely to get distracted from or overwhelmed by the task at hand. similarly, having a double helps prevent you getting stuck hyper-focusing.

6. owning my shit

everyone - even the most neurotypical of people - is late, or misses deadlines, or forgets meetings, or puts off tasks sometimes. it will happen no matter how brilliant your organisational system is. it's part of life.

but if you have adhd, it's very easy to fall into "well, this is just what i'm like" thinking - both self-critically ["i can't improve this, i'm a fuck-up"] and self-indulgently ["he has no right to be angry at me for being late for his party, he knows i have adhd"]

untrue. if you struggle with time management you have a responsibility to get a grip on aspects of those struggles which inconvenience other people. you will have to be quite strict with yourself in order to do this - i've ended up in a position, for example, where i'm always extremely [and often inconveniently - i do a lot of lurking outside the function waiting until it's time to go in] early for things. this is because i know that if i give myself an inch ["oh, i can wait fifteen minutes before leaving, it'll be fine!"] then i'll take a mile ["fuck, i should have left half an hour ago"].

so too with tasks. that "you can do this later... just go on your phone for a bit" voice is the devil speaking. do not listen.

i'm afraid that i've not found this becoming more intuitive with time - i have to be constantly strict with myself, in a way that neurotypical people don't - but it's just the way it is, you just have to do your best.

be community-minded about the things you need to do, be proactive in identifying what your weak areas are and thinking about how you can get around them [as i've said, mine is being late, and so i'm always hyper-alert about not slipping into complacency around this] forgive yourself for the odd slip, say sorry without caveats to people you inconvenience, thank people who are gracious, and extend grace in turn.

7. taking every bit of help going

i'm open about my diagnosis at work - which is a piece of good fortune which isn't available to everyone.

[although, if you're uk-based, a diagnosis of adhd counts as a disability under the equality act - your employer is obligated to make reasonable adjustments for you, you can't be dismissed just for having adhd, and you are entitled to bring a claim of disability discrimination if you are not provided with reasonable adjustments. you are also entitled to apply for an access to work grant - which provides financial assistance for adjustments which fall outside of the reasonable costs your employer is legally obliged to incur.]

i have adjustments at work [not only my standing desk, but things like permission to record meetings and to have all instructions issued in writing] and i feel absolutely no shame over it. if i can get something for free from the government to make my life easier, i will take it.

i am also absolutely shameless about taking advantage of my colleagues to help with time management - using them as body doubles, or asking them to get me from my office so i'm not late to things, for example - and i take advantage of my friends and family along the same lines.

human beings are social creatures - this is literally what we're designed to do - and it's incredibly important to reject the "i owe nobody anything" paradigm [which is one of the most egregious crimes of modern, poorly-regulated therapy]. i receive support, and i repay it turn by doing things for the people who help me.

8. constantly having a little treat

i am a grown adult with three degrees and a mortgage. i have also been known to use a star chart for a little flutter of pride in myself.

if you have a time management triumph, give yourself a little treat. you deserve it.

[optimal-living-lab]

Health and Fitness: Tips and Benefits

Health and fitness are two interrelated concepts that affect our well-being and quality of life. Being healthy means having a good physical and mental condition, free from diseases and disorders. Being fit means having the ability to perform physical activities with ease, strength, and endurance. Both health and fitness can be improved by following some simple tips and enjoying some benefits.

Tips for Health and Fitness

One of the most important tips for health and fitness is to exercise daily for at least an hour. Exercise can help you burn calories, strengthen your muscles, improve your cardiovascular system, and boost your mood. You can choose any type of exercise that suits your preferences and goals, such as walking, running, cycling, swimming, dancing, or lifting weights. The key is to be consistent and challenge yourself gradually.

Another tip for health and fitness is to eat the right foods and portion each meal. Eating a balanced diet that includes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, healthy fats, and water can provide you with the nutrients you need to function properly and prevent diseases. You should also avoid or limit foods that are high in sugar, salt, saturated fat, and processed ingredients. Additionally, you should control your portion sizes and avoid overeating or skipping meals.

A third tip for health and fitness is to keep track of calories and food intake per day. Knowing how many calories you consume, and burn can help you balance your energy intake and expenditure. This can help you maintain a healthy weight or lose weight if needed. You can use a food diary, an app, or a website to record what you eat and drink every day. You can also use a calorie calculator to estimate how many calories you need based on your age, gender, height, weight, and activity level.

A fourth tip for health and fitness is to be sure to get enough sleep. Sleep is essential for your body and mind to recover from the day’s activities and prepare for the next one. Sleep can also affect your appetite, metabolism, immune system, mood, memory, and concentration. You should aim to get at least seven to nine hours of quality sleep every night. To improve your sleep hygiene, you should follow a regular sleep schedule, avoid caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and screens before bed, create a comfortable and dark sleeping environment, and relax before sleeping.

A fifth tip for health and fitness is to stay motivated. Motivation is the driving force that keeps you going despite the challenges and obstacles you may face. To stay motivated, you should set realistic and specific goals, track your progress, celebrate your achievements, reward yourself, seek support from others, join a group or a class, find a workout buddy, or hire a personal trainer. You should also remind yourself of the reasons why you want to be healthy and fit.

Benefits of Health and Fitness

Health and fitness have many benefits for your physical and mental well-being. Some of the benefits are:

Reduced risk of chronic diseases: Being healthy and fit can lower your chances of developing conditions such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, arthritis, and obesity.

Improved balance and coordination: Being fit can enhance your ability to maintain your posture, move gracefully, avoid falls and injuries.

Increased energy levels: Being healthy can boost your metabolism and provide you with more fuel to perform your daily tasks.

Enhanced mood: Being fit can release endorphins in your brain that make you feel happy. Being healthy can also reduce stress hormones that cause anxiety.

Better self-esteem: Being healthy and fit can improve your appearance, confidence, and self-respect.

Conclusion

Health and fitness are important aspects of our lives that we should not neglect. By following some simple tips such as exercising daily, eating right, tracking calories, getting enough sleep, and staying motivated, we can improve our health and fitness levels. By doing so, we can enjoy many benefits such as reduced risk of chronic diseases, improved balance and coordination, increased energy levels, enhanced mood, and better self-esteem. Health and fitness are not only good for us but also for those around us who care about us. So, let’s start today!

[writercole]

T-Minus Three Weeks

Summary: Jake's still cocky, but with a good reason.

Words: 1848

Warnings: Smut. 18+, vaginal intercourse, safe sex, semi-public sex, dirty talk, Jake's a cocky asshole.

A/N: I had to.

Tag list is done. Please follow @coleslibrary and turn on notifications for story updates.

The arrangement that Hangman and Valkyrie had proved beneficial almost immediately. Both of them had improved concentration, less tension, and faster reflexes in the skies the next day of training. Maverick was coaching them through the route they would be taking if they were chosen for the mission. It was full of twists and turns in a cavern at a hard deck of three hundred feet. 

Hangman and Valkyrie had the two best times out of the dozen pilots that were flying but they both had their own issues. Hangman left his team behind, being the fastest didn’t equal the best and his attitude got Fanboy and Payback ‘killed’ earning Jake another two hundred push-ups. 

He took the punishment like a man. His face was red and his jaw set as he completed the exercises out on the tarmac under the supervision of Hondo.

Valkyrie and her team, Phoenix, and Bob, completed the course but were a minute late to target. Though the only team to reach the target without incident, their slower pace gave the enemy time to scramble their own fighters and the F-18’s didn’t stand a chance against fifth gen jets in a dogfight no matter how much Maverick prepared them.

The mood in the rec room that evening was subdued, everyone lost in their own thoughts and trying to figure out how they could be faster, better, more prepared. Valkyrie had heard enough and left without a word, heading towards the hangar loft where the view of the setting sun was breathtaking. 

Jake watched her stalk out of the room with her shoulders tense and her jaw set. He glanced around and saw that no one had reacted to her leaving so he decided, as her best friend, that he needed to go after her.

He checked her room and found it empty, only to remember that she had a thing about watching the sunset when she was upset. The best place on base to watch the sunset was from a loft in the hanger.

Jake hustled back over to the hangar and slipped in quietly, seeing a silhouette standing in the windows. He climbed the metal stairs, his boots echoing across the cavernous space. She didn’t shift in her position at the sound, just continued to watch the light fade.

“Now, didn’t we agree on honesty? So why is it, even as your best friend, I have to track you down to ask what’s troubling you?” he teased as he approached.

She chuckled quietly, shaking her head but keeping her gaze on the sky outside. “This is a suicide mission, Jake,” she whispered.

“I know,” he agreed with a sigh, joining her in watching the last rays of the sun dip behind the horizon. “For anyone else, it would be suicide. But we’re the best pilots in the country, Val. We can do this.”

“I don’t know, three weeks to get this down? And then pulling over 9 G’s on the way out? It’s insane.” Her voice remained quiet as her posture relaxed slightly, the tension dispelled from keeping all of those thoughts inside her head.

“Look at me,” Jake demanded, turning to face her and waiting until she was looking at him. “They wouldn’t have planned this mission if it weren’t possible. And they wouldn’t have pulled the twelve best aviators they have, if they didn’t have faith in us. And they definitely would not have had Captain Mitchell back as an instructor if they thought he couldn’t teach us.”

She nodded slowly, letting the words register into her brain. Taking several deep breaths, she released the tension that she had left in her body. She felt better just voicing her fears but knowing that Jake knew they could pull it off was the thing that relaxed her. 

She stepped towards him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head on his chest. His arms engulfed her, his chin resting atop her head as they stood there. 

He placed a kiss to the top of her head and released his hold. “Let’s get back before they start asking questions,” he suggested.

She nodded and followed him down the stairs, tugging his wrist before he could open the door. “Thanks, Jake,” she smiled, “you’re the only one who can get me out of my head like that.”

“I’m also the only one who made you see stars, if I remember your words right,” he smirked.

She slapped his chest and scoffed, making him laugh. “Don’t be cocky, Jake.”

“Oh but darlin’, it’s not cocky if it’s true. It’s just a fact,” he retorted, his voice an octave lower, sending a shiver down her spine.

“Don’t be a tease, Seresin,” she warned as she looked up into his eyes.

His hands gripped her hips and pulled her flush to him as he dipped his head next to her ear. 

“It’s only teasing if I don’t intend on doing anything about it,” he whispered, nipping her ear when he finished speaking. 

“And what do you intend to do about it?” she asked breathlessly, her heart pounding in her chest as she rested her hands on his shoulders. She hoped that the fabric was thick enough that he didn’t feel the moisture that had accrued on her palms. 

“I plan on helping you relax,” he mumbled as he dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers. 

“And where,” she mumbled between kisses, “do you -” kiss. “propose -” kiss. “this happens?”

He pulled back a half inch and smirked. “I have just the place.”

Jake glanced around, making sure they were alone before he pushed her backwards, under the wing of the nearest jet. He climbed into the cockpit, gesturing for her to follow.

“What? Jake, we can’t,” she said, her eyes darting around the empty hangar.

“Why not?”

“What if the person who flies this jet -”

“Darlin’, this is my jet,” he told her, “and there’s no one else here. So stop talking and climb that ladder.” 

She rolled her eyes but obliged, stopping at the top of the ladder and looking at the small space with a raised brow. 

“Stop overthinking everything and get in here,” he ordered.

“You aren’t the superior officer here,” she spat.

He leveled a glare at her and stood, wrapping his arm around her waist and lifting her into the cockpit. 

The display of dominance had her clenching her thighs as he set her down. He pressed his lips to hers again. The possessiveness in it made her whimper and she wrapped her arms around his neck. His hands dropped down to the button on her pants, swiftly removing them and her panties. 

He broke the kiss and spun her around, bending her over the edge of the control panel as he opened his pants with one hand while his free hand slid up the back of her blouse. He felt a shiver travel down her spine, goosebumps erupting on her skin and her back arching under his touch. 

He dropped to his knees and spread her thighs gently, his lips leading the way for his hands to slide up her legs, her moans reverberating in the hangar. 

“You think you can be quiet? Hmm?” asked Jake as his nose nudged her folds.

“I’ll try,” she panted, “Jake, please.”

He rose to his feet and pulled a condom from his pocket, rolling it down his thick length before nudging the tip through her folds. He pushed in slowly, allowing her to adjust to the stretch with every inch. He paused when he was fully sheathed in her warm cunt, savoring the way her walls felt wrapped around his cock.

“You ready, darlin’?” he questioned, leaning forward to place soft kisses on the back of her neck.

“Yes,” she replied breathlessly, wiggling her hips for emphasis.

“Jesus, you are one impatient little slut,” he chuckled. He heard her whimper and his eyebrow rose, his fingers digging into her hip bones as he tried to restrain himself. 

Jake set a steady pace, his hands wandering as he thrust in and out of her tight pussy. He felt her walls tightening around him and he slid his hand up her back, gripping her hair and pulling her up until she was flush with his chest.

“Did you like hearing how much of a slut you are?” he growled in her ear. She moaned in response and his hips snapped up, hitting a new angle that made her clench around him. “You do. Little slut is taking my cock so well. We’ve only been fucking a couple of days and you’re already addicted.”

The sounds echoing around them were obscene - skin slapping, pornographic moans, the soft squelch of his cock dragging in and out of her. Jake clamped a hand over her mouth, pulling her head back to his shoulder while his other arm wrapped around her waist. 

Her lips moved against his hand and he felt her tense up. A smirk crossed his face as he slowed down, his thrusts becoming more powerful as he nudged her cervix. “You’re close. I can feel it,” he declared, “it’s okay. Let go. Cum on my cock, darlin’. Show me how big of a slut you are for me.”

Her eyes rolled back in her head and a high pitched shout attempted to leave her covered mouth as her release rippled through her. Jake fucked her through it, aftershocks rolling through her sensitive cunt as he chased his own high.

She felt Jake’s hips stutter and his cock twitch, his mouth gasping her name as he filled the condom with his seed. He pulled out slowly, tying off the condom and tossing it on the floor of the jet. He collapsed backwards, pulling her down onto his lap as they calmed. 

The hangar around them was getting darker, the last rays of the sun streaming through the windows at the top of the building. 

“We should get back inside,” he whispered as he nuzzled her neck. 

“Yeah we’ve probably been gone long enough,” she agreed as she stood, scooping her pants up from the floor. 

Before she could slip them on, Jake snatched her panties out of her hand and tucked them into his pocket with a smirk. “Just in case I need them later,” he teased, winking at her devilishly.

“You asshole!” she exclaimed. 

Jake chuckled while she sighed, putting her pants back on and righting herself as he did the same. He climbed out of the jet before her, using the time to look around and double check that they were still alone. 

“Hop on,” he instructed as soon as her boots hit the concrete floor.

“Huh?”

“Get on,” repeated Jake as he squatted down, “I’ll carry you back. I’m sure your knees are just too weak to walk halfway across base anyway.”

“I hate you sometimes, Seresin,” she grumbled as she climbed on his back. She felt a laugh bubble from her chest as he stood and soon, she was giggling into Jake’s shoulder, feeling lighter than she had in months.

Everything: @thelastpyle @deangirl93 @evergreencowboy @katelyn--renee @fictional-affairs @paintlavillered @buckys-zomdoll @polireader @b3autyfuldisast3r @welcometothefandommultiverse @mlovesstories @supraveng @xoxabs88xox

Top Gun: @princessmisery666 @evansrogerskitten @bradshaw-fanclub @saiyanprincessswanie @luckyladycreator2 @princessphilly @ahockeywrites @clints-lucky-arrow @wildbornsiren 2 @shanimallina87 @fuckyeahhangman @blue-aconite @hope-love-equality2 @peachiicherries @marvelousmermaid @therebeccaw @green-socks @imjess-themess @jostystyles @mayhem24-7forever @callsignaries @a-reader-and-a-writer @ahopelessromanticwritersworld

[sonics-schoolhouse]

do you have any tips on concentrating on lessons? I find it hard to do and I really need to learn things so any help would be great :D

“Of course! Concentrating can be pretty hard, I have trouble with it myself. So here’s some tips to use to concentrate on things like lessons! If you find your mind wandering, try taking deep breaths and try to redirect yourself.”

“Oh! Getting a good amount of sleep is always a great way to make sure you can concentrate the next day!”

“Learning and practicing Brain Exercises that suit you and your mind is also a great way to improve your focus and other cognitive skills.”

“And of course, taking breaks when you can will always help your focus! Stop what your doing, eat something filling, drink water, and stretch your legs.”

“I hope these tips help! They may take a bit of getting used to, but if you stick to it, I know you can improve your concentration!”

[skwpr]

9 Scientifically Proven Ways to Get the Most Out of Study Tim

For anyone in the thick of study, or about to be, science has been working hard and has found ways to help you get the most out of your study time, all backed by hefty research. Here’s how to study smarter, supercharge your learning and store the information away in your head so it’s ready to jump into your arms when you need it. 

Get your heart pumping.When you exercise, your blood chemistry changes and your brain becomes the very happy recipient of important nutrients. It repays the favour by amping up its performance – specifically memory, attention, information processing and problem solving. Here are a couple of reasons your brain and exercise are one of the great love stories:

• Exercise increases the levels of a crucial brain-derived neurotophic factor (let’s call it BDNF – it’s much easier to spell). BDNF is important for the growth of brain cells, mood and learning.

• Exercise releases a powerful cocktail of important hormones including serotonin (the mood booster), dopamine (for learning and attention) and norepinephrine (for awareness, attention and concentration).

Try for 20-30 minutes a day. Anything that increases your heart rate will do the trick – running, bike-riding, walking, kicking a ball or turning up the beats and dancing it out. It doesn’t have to be beautiful, strong or graceful. It just has to be active.

Spread your study. Yep. You got it. No cramming.

Cramming doesn’t work, which is one of the great pities – life would be so much easier if it did. The problem with cramming is that the material doesn’t get the opportunity to transfer into long-term memory. Short term memory is like the party space in your head – information is there for a good time but not a long time. When information hits long-term memory, it’s committed and there when you need it. The transfer of information from short-term memory into long-term memory takes time and repeated exposure to the material. It’s not clear why spacing your study is so much better for you, but it’s likely that over a few days you’ll forget some of the material, then remember it again when you come back to your books. This increases exposure to the information which takes it closer to long-term memory.

Know what’s to come.

We only have a limited amount of mental resources, and during a test you want as much of those resources available as possible. The thoughts that come with test anxiety steal some of those mental resources for, you know, worrying, leaving fewer resources available to retrieve important information. Researchers have found that looking through an exam before working on it will reduce anxiety and improve performance. Remember though, that all the mental resources in the world won’t find the right answers in memory if the answers aren’t put there solidly in the first place.

Teach what you’ve learnt.

Expecting to teach what’s been learned has been shown to be better for learning and memory than expecting only testing. It’s a subtle shift in mindset, but the effect on learning is an important one. Learning material with an intention to teach ensures that material is actively understood and stored away in memory, and not passively looked over.

Test yourself.

Testing yourself will force you to remember information. Every time you remember something, the information becomes a little more enduring. Testing yourself might also help to take the fire out of test anxiety, in the same way that exposure to any feared object eventually makes that object less frightening. Testing yourself on the material you’ve learned is more effective than reading the material over and over. Re-reading material might get you thinking that you’re familiar with the material, but until you try to retrieve that material from memory, you won’t actually know how well you know it or where the gaps in your knowledge are.

Get some sleep.

Sounds simple enough, but it’s not always easy when there’s so much to do. Deep sleep causes physical changes in the brain. When you learn something, your brain cells grow new connections that reach out and connect to other brain cells. This strengthens the pathways in your brain around whatever it is your learning. Sleeping after learning encourages memories of the information to be wired into your brain, so it’s less likely to fade. Think of your brain like a tree. Learning causes a branch to grow, but sleep helps it to grow the leaves and other tiny branches that will sustain and strengthen it.

And ditch the all-nighters.

All-nighters will mess with your ability to remember and process information. Sleep prepares your brain for learning, so pulling an all-nighter can cut your capacity to learn new things by up to 40% – and that’s not the only problem. Research has shown that it can take up to four days for your brain to return to normal after you’ve been awake all night.

Take a break

For those feeling shackled to all that is study, here is some sweet, sweet news. Taking a short break after every hour of learning is better than working straight through as it improves your ability to focus on a particular task without being distracted. Research has found that the greatest improvement come following 15 minutes of moderate activity (jogging, a brisk walk, dribbling a ball) but improvement was also shown following vigorous activity (running, jumping, skipping) or a passive break (such as listening to music or watching funny YouTube clips – because for sure that’s why they were invented). Memory is strongest for the things learned immediately before and after a break so keep those times for the tough stuff.

Power pose.

Before a test, find somewhere private (or, totally public – up to you) and strike a power pose. Think Wonder Woman – hands on hips, legs apart; Superman – tall, shoulders back, chest expanded, arms stretched out in front of you; or that boss thing that bosses in the movies do – sitting back the bottom of one leg resting on the thigh of the other, hands behind your head and expanded. This will reduce cortisol (the stress hormone), and increase testosterone (the dominance hormone). The mind-body connection is a strong one. If you don’t believe you can do it, act like you can – eventually your mind won’t know the difference and will have you believing you can do anything – which you can.

So, if study and you are spending a lot of time together, remember to take breaks, get some pillow time, get active, or dig for comedy gold on YouTube – whatever works for you. Maybe try a bit of everything – not for too long though – the world can’t be brilliant without you.