#pushing the slot limit so we shall see what happens

[prudentfolly]

Prudence's apartment so far. I need to pick out some rugs and fill those frames, still, and I have one corner that is not... done at all but!! So far I really like it!

[mallowstep]

how do you find the energy and motivation to write like... everyday?? i literally cannot write unless i am possessed by a thought in my brain and forced to spew out everything onto paper. and then i cant look at it again ot edit it. like, i really love writing and if im forced to do it for school i will, but i cant write for myslef.

practice.

first, i want to say that i am going to describe how i write, but it is not necessarily going to work for most people, because it has to do with my own psychology and mental health.

second, i want to say that i view writing as writing for pleasure or writing for work. poetry, for example, i write for pleasure, and i would not apply what i am going to discuss to poetry. that happens when i have something to say. it is OK to not want to write for work. that's acceptable and encouraged.

third, i want to dispel a myth. writing consistently is not about motivation. it is about discipline. and you should take heart in that, because motivation is hard to control. you can't force yourself to want to do something, no matter how hard you try. but if you build up discipline, you can learn to do it anyway.

i'm not going to go into that now, because i'm coming at this from the specific perspective of someone with adhd who uses pressure to force myself to function, which is...a hard balance to strike, and not something i can strictly recommend. it does work for some people. i think of it as an arch.

but i digress, i said i wasn't discussing the specifics of how i function in day-to-day life, lest i encourage others to do as i do.

okay. so. where am i going with all of this?

part one: a long, fairly incoherent ramble about me and mental health and writing

well. i don't think the idea of writing for yourself is very helpful to a lot of people. i do write for myself. but that doesn't get my ass in the chair and my fingers on the keyboard. the thing that does that is not social obligation to others, either, it is the firm knowledge that putting words on paper is going to keep me from falling apart.

i don't do that for myself. i don't do that for anyone but the human need to hold yourself together. i am very happy i feel that need at the moment, and every time i have stopped writing* in the past ten years, i have lost that need.

* writing here should really be replaced with a broader term. creating things. making things. working with my hands and something real. but writing is the best thing i know to fill this in myself.

writing does not feel optional. i started writing seriously when i was not-quite-a-teenager and had untreated depression. it was desperate, then. the need to know i was capable of feeling emotions. since then, writing has been different things at different times. it has been a social need. it has been a creative need. it has been a demanding drive. it has been something i drag myself to do because i know it is good for me.

i don't have to write. i could paint, or draw, or knit, or code, or any number of things. i have used all of those things, and more, in the past, but writing is something i also enjoy.

sometimes writing is dragging myself to the keyboard. it is not always a flurry of words as an idea seizes me. it is, "i am publishing the next chapter of ashes because it is monday and that is what i do on mondays." but.

it is monday, and that is what i do on mondays.

i hate not posting every day. i hate it. i am Untethered. i spent ca. three weeks over the summer completely disconnected from time, but. i post ashes today, it is monday, i move on, i go through the days and they are not the same.

i hate not posting every day. i know that i would be doing better if i could just break through and start again, but figuring out how is hard. some things i know (ibtwicm is stressful because another person is involved, and that means that i cannot work with betas, even though the one i have is absolutely wonderful and i adore her), but other things are just that nebulous idea of not enough time to start.

i don't always have the energy to write. some days are bad. some days my head hurts. i don't have the expectation that i will never miss a day of posting. i've taken plenty of time off. but i like the rhythm.

anyway. let me try to turn that incoherent ramble about me into something...actionable?

part two: what i tangibly do

i have a schedule. that is not requisite, but it saves me from making decisions. i have a schedule and i have fics and one-shots and they all slot into that schedule by arc. i could have done it by anything, but arc was convenient.

anyway.

i figure out what i'm posting when i wake up in the morning, and i try to skim over what i've already got before starting my day. i flick back and forth between writing and whatever i am doing throughout the day.

(which is why, as i transition back into my normal pace, the thing i have been doing to fill the gap will diminish. less au chatter snippets etc, because that is what i have been doing instead of writing.)

by the evening, i'm usually close to done with the draft. i spend a solid chunk of time patching it up, then i do a round of edits, finish my other work, do line edits, and post.

if i have time after that, i start looking at tomorrow's post.

that's it. sometimes i don't want to work on something. too bad. it's on the schedule. or even, "too bad, we're posting something today." unless i am having a bad (read: low spoon) day, i do not waver in that expectation for myself.

in fact, i think the only way ibtwicm will get done is if the final chapter two chapters go up un-beta'd, because the deviation from routine makes me impossibly frustrated with them. we shall see.

anyway. i have spent years building the discipline to be able to do that. if you rely on motivation, do not think you can just flip over and magically learn how to turn an empty page into words because you told yourself that is what you are doing right now. so.

part three: how to build discipline

i said i won't be covering this, and i'm not Really. i'm going to tell you how to get started, and i am going to be the Bad Guy. i am not capable of doing this kindly. there are other, better, resources i encourage you to seek out.

so. you can't start by just. throwing yourself into it. it won't work, it'll be frustrating, etc.

you want to figure out what a reasonable word count/day is for you. i shoot for 3k words/day, but i figure as long as i'm above 1k, i'm happy.

[aside: if you are going to be writing a lot in a day, please take care of your body. have good posture. know how to hold yourself. etc. i credit years of playing piano as giving me strong wrists and nice, curved fingers, and exercises to build and strengthen the same muscles as you use for typing, but just keep this in mind.]

anyway, there's no right number. 100 words is enough. it should be -- what works for me is a number that's just slightly higher than what i can do comfortably, because it means i have to be focused, which keeps me on track. i think this is important. it is not the only way.

and then you just meet that goal. if you're new to this, writing 100 words every day might be hard. you don't have to limit yourself to 100, just hit 100 every. single. day.

eventually that will feel easy.

"i don't feel like writing," you will think, "but i've figured out how to get around that."

then you either feel happy with what you're doing or push your word count up.

me? i don't measure how many words i write, because i've already done all of that. for all i bemoan research and being stuck, i'm generally exceptionally effective. i don't think that's bragging; i think the number of asks i have answered with scenes i whipped out of nowhere demonstrate that.

i have spent years getting to the point where i can open up a blank page, on a day when i feel like crap (emotionally), when i have no ideas and no motivation and every word i put on paper feels robotic and stiff and terrible, and still finish what i started. it's hard work. it might not be worth the effort. but. that's what i do.

[honeymoonjin]

A/N: part of the Roll Deep series. Banner created by @jeonau, go show her some love xx In a desperate bid to cure your troubles in the bedroom, you and your boyfriend Jimin reach out to a famous dom on twitter that specialises in helping couples spice up their boring sex lives, Jay94. Warnings for sexually explicit content: threesome, exhibitionism/voyeurism, pet names, sub!Jimin, sub!reader, dom!Hoseok, being filmed w consent, double penetration, protected sex, unprotected sex (only one of them wears a condom), fingering, maybe a hint of cuckholding.  Word count: 5.9k

--

“You have the forms?” Jimin hands them to the young man enthusiastically. “Alright, age verification, STI tests, hard limits… This all seems in order. Give me a sec to go over these and I’ll be right back.”

The moment he leaves the hotel suite to sneak into the adjoined bathroom, Jimin jumps on you with all the eagerness of an overexcited puppy. “This is it, jagiya! It’s finally happening, can you believe it?”

You bite your lip, trying to steady your racing heart. “Not really… Jimin, when you suggested a threesome, this really wasn’t what I was expecting.” The truth was, you weren’t all that surprised when Jimin had come to you one night and proposed inviting another person in to bed with you. The two of you had always been complete matches for each other since the moment you met, but it seemed that chemistry had never really extended into the bedroom. The two of you barely bothered with sex anymore since it was just never good for either of you, and you had felt that frustrated tension rising in both of you for the past few months. “Honestly, I thought you were gonna ask if one of your friends could join in, not some random guy off the internet.”

Jimin’s eyes widen in protest. “It’s not some random guy, it’s Jay94! He’s one of the most popular nsfw profiles on twitter. Trust me, this is way better than any of my friends. He’s an expert. A sexpert.”

As nervous as you are, you can’t help the reluctant smile that breaks across your face. “You’re such an idiot.”

“You love me.”

You shake your head at his cheeky grin with a laugh. “If this goes downhill, it’s your-”

“Alrighty!” You jump a little when the door to the bathroom opens again and the man steps back in with an easygoing beam on his face. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” You pout as Jimin pushes you over a little to leave room beside him for the man to sit down, the three of you lined up on the edge of the firm mattress. “First of all, just so you both feel a little more comfortable, my name isn’t Jay, it’s Hoseok, but please try to avoid calling my real name out in bed. If you do slip up, I can censor it out, but it disrupts the audio, so either use Jay or a title like sir or daddy.”

Before you can hold it back, you let out a snort at the way he’s speaking so casually about things. Jimin widens his eyes and whacks you, but Hoseok just shrugs, unbothered.

“I know it sounds weird now, but a huge part of what I do is to make sure all my companions are 100% comfortable and aware before we start filming. This isn’t a sex dungeon; you can laugh and joke around and ask questions as much as you want.”

You shift slightly on the bed. “Well, then… Jimin’s seen like all of your videos, bought some full ones and everything, he’s a big fan-”

“Y/n!”

“-but I don’t really know so much what’s going on. What do you, uh, normally do?”

Once Jimin collapses back onto the bed, covering his cheeks as they burn bright red, you can see past him to Hoseok, who gives you a reassuring smile. “Well, I don’t know how much your boyfriend has told you, but I specialize in providing help to those that have difficulties in performing sexually. Think of it like hands-on training, in the literal sense. I normally work with subs-”

“Subtitles?” you question curiously.

His eyebrows lift in bewilderment. “Submissives. Wow, he really hasn’t told you a thing, has he?”

Your eyes slide to Jimin as he sits up, leaning back on his elbows so that you can still see Hoseok. “To be fair,” Jimin protests petulantly, “I did tell her she could check out your profile at any time. She just chose not to.”

You’re ready to defend yourself, but instead of looking offended, Hoseok just grins even wider, eyes running down your body and back up again. Your cheeks heat up as he chuckles. “Well, then, she’ll be extra fun to play with.” The lust in his eyes vanishes as he snaps back into professional mode, and the duality has you feeling a little whiplashed. “Most of the time the people I film with are fans like young Jimin here, so they already have some awareness and preconceived expectations. Which on the whole is a positive thing, but I’m definitely going to enjoy the chance to introduce someone completely new into it.”

“See, jagiya,” Jimin interjects, “I told you this would be fine! All we need is a push in the right direction and our sex life will be fantastic after this!”

Hoseok laughs at your boyfriend’s eagerness, and the sound is carefree and high-toned. As irrational as it may be, you’re already finding yourself comfortable in his presence, even in this very odd context. “Alright, Jimin, let’s start with you first since you know what you’re doing. What do you believe your strengths are in bed?” Automatically, Jimin’s face turns to you for confirmation, and Hoseok tuts. “I’ll ask her to leave the room if I have to, Jimin. This is your question to answer. No rights and wrongs, just learning curves.”

You fight the urge to smile fondly at the rosy flush on Jimin’s cheeks as he looks down at the mattress, gone shy. “Um… I guess I’m good at trying new things? Uh, I’m a good kisser. I don’t know. I don’t think I have any strengths, really. I have the motivation and want to be better, but I just don’t know what to do.”

Instead of passing any comment, Hoseok simply nods solemnly and turns to you. “Do you have anything to add about his strengths, Y/n?”

You try and ignore the way him saying your name makes you warm up inside. “I agree with Jimin, he’s an amazing kisser. And he has a fantastic ass, the best I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s just because you haven’t watched 128B. His ass was better than mine.”

You crinkle your brow in confusion, but Hoseok apparently understands Jimin’s statement. “Ah, 128B was a fun time. He was a sports coach, though, not so good with taking instructions and listening to me.” His voice lowers to a honeyed drawl. “You’ll behave well for me, won’t you, Jimin?”

Jimin’s face goes blank and his eyes glaze over. He nods.

Satisfied, Hoseok lights up again and shifts out of that persona. “Anyways, that’s that, let’s move on. Y/n, your strengths.”

You swallow hard when the attention shifts back to you. “I can take risks; I can follow instructions. I’m eager to please. I think… I think I’m good at giving handjobs and blowjobs.” Jimin nods vigorously with a cheery beam. “Okay, yeah. I think that’s it.”

“Alrighty then,” Hoseok nods, “we won’t waste time with those, then.” Jimin’s face falls. “Jimin, what are Y/n’s strengths in bed?”

He pouts, slumping on the bed. “Handjobs and blowjobs,” he mumbles pettily.

Hoseok laughs heartily, clapping him on the shoulder. “You two can do as much of that at home as you wish, but this here is for working on everything but your strengths. Now, I think I might see our problem here. The two of you both seem to be naturally submissive, which might make things awkward in bed, as neither of you will automatically jump into a position of leadership. We’ll work on that.”

Spiel done, Hoseok stands up and starts checking out the cameras, stationed strategically around the room. Your heart begins to race. God, this was really happening. “Do we-” you cough a little to break the nervous lilt to your voice, “do we wear masks? I don’t want to be recognized…”

Without looking up, Hoseok quirks his head in the direction of the closet, in front of which is a large, splayed-open suitcase with a terrifying selection of sex toys, some you couldn’t even guess the use for. “Top zipper pocket has masks, you can choose. Cute ones, full-face ones, comfortable ones. Go wild.”

You make your way over on shaky legs. Pulling a general handful out, you hold them up to your boyfriend, who smiles cheerily and picks out a soft fuzzy pink one, a solid band with two slots for his eyes. You chuck it over to him, then choose a simple black one, not unlike a sleep mask, only with those same eye-holes cut out.

“Now, then,” Hoseok announces, now crouched on the floor, fiddling with a camera tripod, raising it higher, “the fun part. Kinks. Since the two of you don’t seem like overly experienced people, I think today can be about exploration and discovery.” When he straightens up, he goes over to the suitcase and opens a different pocket, putting out a mask rather similar to yours, but a glossy black latex rather than the cheaper fabric of yours. He puts it on and adjusts the straps as he continues talking. “Y/n, since you might not know, it’s important I tell you how important communication is. We’ll be doing new things, challenging you, pushing limits. I want you to go along with it as best you can, but the moment things get too much for you, or if something just isn’t arousing to you, please let me know. Similarly, be sure to tell me when something does feel good, or if you want more. Feel free to use the traffic light system. Green means go, yellow means slow down or pull back a little, and red will stop our proceedings immediately. This goes for you too, Jimin, of course. You both understand?” The two of you nod obediently, but Hoseok shakes his head. “Verbal consent. You both understand?”

“Yes,” you say, though it comes out husky like a whisper. Jimin speaks his agreement too.

“Alrighty, masks on, please. We’ll start rolling.”

In a hurry, you slip your mask over your head, adjusting your hair so that it doesn’t stick up, though you don’t imagine it’ll stay neat for long. Jimin follows suit, but takes it one step further by beginning to slip off his shoes and socks.

Hoseok turns back from switching on all of the cameras, and chuckles. “My my, someone’s eager. First things first, you know what you can call me, but I’m assuming you don’t want your real names being used.”

Your eyes widen. Fuck, you hadn’t even thought about that. “No, definitely not.”

“That’s okay, do either of you have a preference for a pet name?”

Jimin lightens up. “Oh, uh, I like being called baby boy. If that’s okay.”

Jimin had brought this up with the two of you before, and although you obliged, you always felt a little silly calling him that when you had automatically viewed him as the more dominant person in your relationship in general. Hoseok, however, clearly doesn’t have that prejudice, as he prowls over to Jimin, who still sits on the edge of the bed with his legs dangling over the edge and pushes himself between Jimin’s knees.

You’re taken aback, and more than a little turned on, by how predatory Hoseok looks right now, as he brushes Jimin’s hair back from his face and tips his head up. Jimin looks in heaven, letting his eyelids slide closed and his mouth part.

“Hm, is my baby boy gonna be good for me tonight?” Jimin exhales shakily and nods as much as he can in Hoseok’s grip. The elder smiles, and bends down to pull Jimin into a deep kiss. Your hips shift against the mattress at the erotic sight of another man claiming your boyfriend with lips, teeth and tongue. Even though it’s not happening to you, by the time Hoseok pulls away, breaking a strand of saliva with his tongue, you feel your heat thumping furiously in your chest. Jimin’s already-full lips are even more swollen and his eyes are lidded as he blinks in a daze. You want that for yourself.

Luckily, it looks like you’re going to get it, as Hoseok sets his sights on you and leaves Jimin’s side to stand in front of you. The black latex clings to his face, stopping just along his cheekbones, and it makes his eyes seem even more domineering. You swallow.

“No preference?” he asks. You shake your head wordlessly, but he just smiles and grabs your chin gently but firmly, turning your head up to face him. You feel your pulse throbbing in your neck, and you can barely breathe. You hadn’t felt this excited in the bedroom in a long time, and you hadn’t even gotten started yet. “Eyes on me,” he commands, “let’s let your body speak for itself, hm? Are you gonna be my baby girl? My princess? My whore? My kitten?” Without realizing, you suck in a breath through your nose, and a broad grin stretches across his face. “Interesting. I bet my little kitten wants a kiss like her boyfriend got, doesn’t she?”

You lick your dry lips. “Yes, please.”

“Good girl.” And then his lips are pressing against yours, and you feel like you’re being devoured whole, drunk on the sensation of his fingers tightening on your chin as his tongue explores every inch of your wet cavern. The nerves about being filmed go away under the drag of his teeth against your bottom lip, and you’re filled with a shameless need. You wanted this man to take every part of you, not just your mouth.

Too soon, he’s pulling away from you, letting you go. You sway slightly, feeling unanchored without his hands on you. You sneak a glance at Jimin, who’s biting hard on his lip, palming at the front of his jeans, where you can see he’s rock hard, straining against the stiff fabric. Jimin sees you staring and gives you a baleful look from under his eyelashes.

Hoseok, ever observant, notices this. “Do you want your clothes off, baby boy? Looks like you’re having a hard time.”

Jimin pouts and glances down, rubbing himself again. “Hurts,” he complains simply.

“Undress for me, then,” Hoseok commands. “Stand up in front of us and undress.”

Us? The moment Jimin hops up off the bed, Hoseok takes his place and sidles up behind you, tugging you back so that you rest on his chest, his legs on either side of you. You gasp at the way he moves your body for you, pulling it around as he pleases. His arms snake around under yours and rest on your thighs. Your ass is right against his crotch, and you can feel how hard he is.

Jimin pauses and stares in surprise. Standing awkwardly in front of you in his bare feet, he tugs at his shirt uncertainly.

Hoseok’s behind you, so you can’t see his expression, but it’s enough to make Jimin’s eyes go wide and glassy. His voice is stern. “Did I stutter? Undress. Slowly.”

You frown in concern, mouthing, ‘are you okay?’ to your boyfriend, but he nods lightly, grabbing the edges of his shirt and slowly slipping it over his head, revealing the unblemished skin beneath. His fingers slip down, passing over the little happy trail below his belly button to reach for his jeans.

Your breath catches when you feel fingers dancing around your throat, brushing your hair aside and tipping your head over slightly. Instead of his fingers, or his lips like you were expecting, the sensitive skin is greeted with a broad swipe of his tongue, and you let out an unbidden whimper, causing Jimin to freeze and Hoseok to chuckle throatily in your ear.

“Lesson one, anticipation and surprise. You know how you can’t tickle yourself because you know it’s coming? That’s the exact same for sex. Things feel better when you increase anticipation and change expectations. If I had just sat our kitten down and licked her, she probably would’ve cringed away and found it gross. But because I put her on edge, it felt good.” Hoseok’s teacher voice drops away to something darker. “Did I say to stop, baby boy?”

Jimin gasps and hurriedly unbuttons his jeans, before remembering to go slow, and gingerly slides them down his legs, hopping on one foot to get each pant leg off from around his ankles. Now only in his underwear, you can see that his straining erection has managed to slip out of the waistband of his underwear, the head peeking out the top of the elastic, smearing a pearly clear fluid on the solid plane of his lower stomach. You feel your mouth water at the sight.

“All the way,” Hoseok specifies, and Jimin takes a deep breath for slipping his underwear off, exposing himself fully to the two of you. “Now turn around and show me that ass my kitten loves so much.” Jimin blushes furiously, but turns around, crossing his arms over his chest for comfort. You and Hoseok both shamelessly drink in the sight. “Fuck, baby,” Hoseok groans, “she was right. That is the best ass I’ve ever seen. Come here, on the bed.”

Jimin’s cheeks are still pink when he turns back around and climbs on the bed, cock bobbing in the air, but his eyes are bright with the praise he received, and you can see that when he crawls further up the mattress, he sticks his ass out more than strictly necessary.

Hoseok taps your side, guiding you to move forward, so you assume it’s your turn to undress, but the moment your hands find the hem of your shirt, Hoseok stops you.

“Not yet,” he chastises, “I want you to undress me.”

You swallow hard as he gets off the bed, standing in front of you. You go for his shirt first, brushing the backs of your knuckles over his skin as you lift the black fabric off, tossing it in the same general pile that Jimin left his clothes in, before turning your attention to his jeans. You feel the weight of his stare on you as your hands hover shakily over his crotch, popping the button open. After unzipping them and sliding them off him, Hoseok kicking his shoes and socks away at the same time, the only item that remains is his underwear.

But just as you go to reach for them, you feel a hand on your shoulder. “Kitten,” Hoseok says in a low voice, “not with your hands.” The pressure on your shoulder increases, and you let yourself be pushed onto your knees.

Face to face with the sizeable tent in Hoseok’s briefs, you glance up at him one last time before getting closer, using your teeth to grab onto the elastic just on top of his hipbone, and dragging it down.

The whole affair takes longer than you were expecting, and you feel yourself go hot in the face with humiliation at the ungraceful act, wiggling your face side to side to try and pull it over the curve of his ass, switching sides as one would get stuck, but his hand stayed on your shoulder the whole time, and something deep inside of you was lighting up at the chance to do as he asked, thriving on that feeling of subservience.

Once you’re done, you sit back up on your knees, and reel back when his cock stands proudly to attention right in front of your face. He’s bigger than Jimin, although quite a bit less girthy, and although you never thought you’d say it, his dick is actually… pretty. A single vein runs up the side, and now that you’re seeing it head-on, you notice it curves slightly to the left, the head just beside his belly button instead of in line with it. You glance up at him with a question on your face.

He grins and runs his fingers through your hair, gathering it at the back. Your breath picks up in anticipation, but that’s shattered when instead of guiding you onto him, he’s tipping your head away. “What did I say? We’re not spending time on our strengths. Besides, you haven’t done anything to deserve this cock in your mouth. You haven’t even bothered undressing like the rest of us.” Your cheeks burn in indignation, but he just laughs at you, jiggling your head back and forth a little condescendingly before releasing his grip on your locks. “Come on, kitty-kitty, clothes off. No dilly-dallying this time, we haven’t got all day.”

He gets on the bed, not even watching you as he joins Jimin, who looks to be growing more impatient by the second. You stand up and pout as Hoseok throws a leg over Jimin’s lap and presses him down into the covers, reconnecting their mouths together to wetly make out with one another. Feeling forgotten, you rip your clothes off, eager to join in the action again, but once you hop up on the bed, fully naked, both men ignore you.

You sit back and cross your legs, awkwardly scratching at your arm, feeling horny and left out. You can hear the smack of lips, panted groans, and the guttural praises that fall from Hoseok’s lips, and here you are, untouched and unattended to. You awkwardly clear your throat, but the only reaction is Hoseok wrapping an arm around Jimin’s back and sitting them both up, leaving some room between them for his free hand to slip between and play at Jimin’s nipples, teasingly flicking and rubbing at the sensitive skin, swallowing up your boyfriend’s whines.

The noises are arousing, but you’re starting to get a little sick of it, of Hoseok drawing noises out of your boyfriend that you had never even heard before. “Jay,” you call, loudly enough that he can’t ignore you.

Hoseok grins against Jimin’s lips and doesn’t make any move to pull away as he replies, so that the sound is a little muffled. “Want some attention, kitten?”

You frown. “Yes.”

“Then take it.”

Cameras all but forgotten, and etiquette thrown aside, you huff and move up to them, pushing Hoseok away so that he falls back and bounces against the mattress. With one possessive move, you straddle Jimin and push him back down again, kissing him more deeply, more greedily than Hoseok did, reaching a hand up to bury in his hair and tug at the roots perhaps more harshly than you normally would have. Jimin reacts immediately, cock twitching under you as he keens.

“That’s it,” Hoseok praises with a voice thick with amusement, “that’s exactly what our baby boy needs. Someone to take control. Does it feel good, kitten? To take what’s yours?”

You pull back and sit up with a hand on Jimin’s chest, panting slightly. Your boyfriend looks up at you, blinking with wide eyes surrounded by fuzzy pink fabric, lips slick with spit. His pupils are totally blown out, and he licks his lips in wonder. “Yeah. It does.”

“Then that’s lesson two. It can feel good to take control once in a while, and power dynamics are fluid. You can be on your knees begging for cock one second, then making your baby boy writhe beneath you the next.”

You catch your breath and twist around to face him. He’s sitting up, one hand propping himself up, the other resting calmly on his inner thigh, though by the deep flush of his cock, you’re sure he’s just as desperate for friction as the two of you are. His mask is still perfectly in place, disguising the top half of his face, but the smug expression he wears is clear as day. “What’s lesson three then?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Lesson three is testing limits.” His eyes dart down to where you’re still straddling Jimin’s thighs, spread out over him. “Do you think you could fit both of us at once?”

Reflexively, you shake your head quickly. “No way.”

Hoseok’s grin is catlike. “Should we try?”

You bite your lip, remembering the color system he had introduced. If it was too much, you could just call out yellow and he’d pull back. Hesitantly, you nod once. He tilts his head. Verbal consent. “Yes. I want to try.”

“That’s my good girl. Boyfriend gets first pick; baby boy, which hole do you want?”

Jimin, still flat on his back, pushes himself up to rest on his elbows. His eyes slide around the room: his cock, your pussy waiting just behind it, Hoseok’s cock, Hoseok’s face. He stays there, clearing his throat. “I, uh, maybe… maybe we could both go in her, you know…?”

You turn back around to Hoseok, who looks disappointed. Your heart sinks even as you feel yourself growing wetter at the thought. You hate him looking displeased. “That’s a great idea, baby boy, but how can you expect to fuck your girl right if you can’t even bring yourself to say the right words? Kitten, come here.”

You get off Jimin and crawl obediently over to Hoseok, who immediately grabs your hips and pulls you down against him, your back against his chest. With one hand pinning your arms and chest down, he slips his legs under yours, hooks your ankles with his, and then spreads them, pulling you with him so that you’re wide open and bare to Jimin, who pouts and pushes his hips against the mattress in search of friction.

“This, my dear baby boy, is a pussy.” With his free hand, Hoseok reaches down and slaps it lightly, making you jump in your grasp. His fingers slip over too, too wet to get any real friction, and you tip your head back over Hoseok’s shoulder when he buries two fingers deep inside you, holding them there. “I want you to repeat after me: I love my girlfriend’s pussy.”

Hoseok suddenly begins thrusting his fingers into you at a pace that has your toes curling. Instinctively, your thighs tense as they try to pull in around his hand, but his legs hold you open for him, and you’re helpless to do anything but take the brutal onslaught of pleasure he’s giving you.

Jimin sputters. “I- I love my girlfriend’s… pussy.”

“I want to fuck my girlfriend’s pussy.”

You whimper and shake on top of Hoseok as he pins you down and fucks you on his fingers. You hear Jimin swear under his breath. “I want to fuck my girlfriend’s pussy!”

“Good!” You gasp when Hoseok suddenly removes his fingers from you and pulls them up to his mouth, sucking on them like a lollipop, getting every last drop of you. You groan and go limp, feeling empty. “Then come fuck it.”

Normally, when you and Jimin had sex, he would painstakingly get you ready finger by finger, and when he finally took you, he would do it so slowly for fear of hurting you that you would reach a hand down to rub at your clit while he wasn’t looking, just to make sure you stayed wet. Now, however, he doesn’t waste time with any of that. Maybe it’s the safety net of those safewords, maybe it was Hoseok riling him up, maybe he was just too horny to think, but the moment he gets to you, using Hoseok’s thick thighs to keep himself steady, he lines himself up and pushes into you with one harsh thrust, snapping his hips with a grace you had only ever seen from him when he danced.

You cry out and clutch at the tops of his hands; the only things you can reach with Hoseok still locking your arms to your sides in his embrace. It’s a strange feeling, having one man holding you tight and another man fucking you, but your nerves are on fire with the feeling of being surrounded by them, every single one of your senses drunk on the two of them. That thick smell of sex, Hoseok’s proud chuckle in your ear, the way Jimin ground against your pubic bone with every thrust, hitting the underside of your clit and causing you to clench helplessly around him.

“Ji- fuck!” you cry, holding back from crying out his name like you desperately want to. Instead, you babble nonsense about how good it feels, eyes scrunched shut to fully drown in sensation.

“Stop,” Hoseok commands, but Jimin’s out of his mind, chasing that high, and he continues to pummel recklessly into you. “Stop or I won’t let you cum at all.”

Jimin growls, a guttural sound you’ve never heard from him before. “Fuck!” he complains, giving one desperate thrust before stilling inside you. You pant and go lax against Hoseok, feeling the wave of pleasure fade away.

“Don’t give me that attitude,” Hoseok scolds in a stern tone, “you were the one who wanted to share her pussy with me. Now, lie back and take my kitten with you.”

You whimper when Hoseok slips his legs and arm away from you, and you fall forward limply, crashing onto Jimin’s chest as he lies flat on his back. The move has him shifting inside you, and you grind your hips against him to feel something again, only to stop and jump when a firm hand lays a slap against your ass. Jimin groans as you clench automatically around him.

Out of seemingly nowhere, Hoseok produces a foil packet and rips it open, pumping himself a few times before slipping it on as he chastises you. “Wait your turn, kitten, don’t get greedy on me. You’ll have more than you can handle soon enough.”

You bite your lip and lower yourself fully onto Jimin’s chest so that you can arch your ass up to present to Hoseok. Although you had never even considered being taken by two men at once, you found yourself almost drooling at the thought of both of them inside you. “Please,” you beg pathetically.

Hoseok chuckles, and you feel his finger pressing into you, a tight fit around Jimin’s cock. “Patience,” he chastises, increasing to two fingers.

It’s torture, waiting for him to stretch you out enough. You know it’s necessary, but god, you just want him in you already. Finally, after he can comfortably scissor three fingers beside Jimin, he removes them and you feel the bed shift as he gets into place, cock brushing against your inner thigh.

He lines you up with one hand on his cock and the other splayed out on your ass, and begins to press in. The fit is snug, and you’ve never felt this split open before, but it has you open-mouthed, drooling on Jimin’s chest, unable to hold back the low moans that fall out of you with every inch.

“Color?” Hoseok checks in, and after you confirm it’s green, he rubs your ass comfortingly. “Having fun?”

“So good,” you groan, clutching at the sheets on either side of Jimin, feeling the muscles in your thighs tremble. “Fuck, so good.”

“How are you holding up, baby boy?”

Jimin has his eyebrows knitted and his eyes tightly shut. He nods stiffly. “Mhm. Good. Really good.”

Hoseok laughs breathily as he finally bottoms out. “Hm, I don’t think our baby boy is going to last very long. We better get a move on then.” And with that, he slides partly out and rocks back up into you. You cry out and pant against Jimin’s chest as Hoseok begins to fuck you, his front pressing against the curve of your ass with every thrust.

It’s too much. You can’t close your mouth or even think, but at the same time it’s not quite enough. You gargle in an attempt to make words, pushing a shaky hand down further to reach for your clit, hoping that one of them would get the message, and luckily your Jimin opens his eyes at the feeling of your hand pressed between you and reaches down to thumb at your clit.

You had told him once that many women couldn’t orgasm without clitoral stimulation and although he may have been inexperienced in other areas, he never forgot to provide that stimulation for you no matter what you were doing. You babble out a thank you, feeling your orgasm quickly approaching, more powerful and deep than it’s ever been before. “Close,” you manage to make out through moans.

Hoseok grunts in affirmation. “You gonna cum for us, kitten? Look, our baby boy is about to.”

You open your eyes blearily and glance up at Jimin, who’s started rubbing at your clit in a frenzy as he whines desperately, arching underneath you. You lower your head back down to suck at his nipple, dragging your teeth over, and he cums with a shout, spilling inside you.

You can feel cum running out of you as Hoseok continues to fuck you, and in the back of your pleasure-addled mind you wish he wasn’t wearing a condom so that he could fill you up too, and the thought of two men’s cum dripping out of your abused pussy propels you over the edge, and you begin to convulse under the overwhelming sensations hitting you like a strong wave.

Hoseok thrusts once, twice, three more times before he presses himself flush against you and groans, scratching your ass slightly as his fingers curl.

The three of you stay in a pile, all panting heavily, for about ten minutes. Your legs have gone numb yet strangely tingly, and they have no energy in them. Hoseok pulls out of you first, but extremely slowly, trying to let your pussy adjust to the empty space he leaves behind. When Hoseok lifts your hips up and Jimin falls out, you whimper at the strange sensation of your walls not closing in fully, still stretched wide open by the two cocks you had inside you.

As Hoseok quickly leaves to dispose of the used condom, you roll limply to the side, and Jimin’s hand finds yours, intertwining your fingers and holding on tightly. You turn your head to face him and smile dopily. “Thank you for talking me into this, baby.”

Even after the vigorous sex he had just had, Jimin’s eyes are bright and he beams warmly at you, squeezing your hand. “Thank you for saying yes. I can’t wait to take you home and fuck you again. Fuck that beautiful pussy of yours.”

Your cheeks flush, but you chuckle. “Oh, so now you’re a sexpert, huh? My beautiful pussy probably needs a day or two to recover, Jiminie.” Your face falls. “Oh fuck, the camer-”

“I’ve switched them off,” Hoseok assures you calmly as he walks back in the room. “You were both too fucked-out to notice. I hope you enjoyed yourselves.”

You let out a contented sigh. “God, yes. That was amazing. I wish I could do that again.”

Hoseok shrugs. “I’ve had plenty of people come back for a second-”

“Uh-uh,” Jimin protests, sidling up to you possessively. “I appreciate your help, Hoseok-hyung, but now that I know how to fuck her right, I can guarantee she’ll be too tired to come back again. She’s my kitten.”

[baddyzarc]

4b/7 Ruins: Legend of the Dragons

1 2 3 4a x 5 6 7  

Part 2 of Mizael’s Ruins

Alright, I’m going to get into some deep lore in regards to the Zexal Universe and how Jinlon and Mizael and even Kaito fit into it.

To begin, the Universe was created by the Numeron Dragon eons ago. By doing this, the dragon used all of its power and will die as a result. Sad that it will never be able to witness its creation grow (which, you aint missing much, buddy), it shedded a single tear. This teardrop contained the Numeron Code, or the dragon’s knowledge, emotions, and the ability to rewrite the Universe. The Numeron Code landed on Earth. In the Zexal Universe, this was the event that created the Moon, which is also where the remaining fragments of the Numeron Dragon (in the form of “Number 100: Numeron Dragon’’) reside. Fearing that it’s powers would be used for evil, the Numeron Dragon hid the Code and placed a key on it.

According to Astral, the location of the Numeron Code is revealed when Numbers 1 to Numbers 100 is collected because of how it relates to his memory. But this causes some problems when it comes to the plot, but I’ll explain that later.

To awaken the sealed Numeron Dragon and obtain “Number 100″, the Numeron Dragon embedded a riddle into a stone tablet that Kaito found in the cave near Mizael’s ruins:

“Dragons of light and time, clash at thy place of birth. Then shall the eyes of the galaxies awaken for the first time, opening a gate to a new world.”

This riddle is rather straight-forward especially with the imagery used. The time dragon is “Number 107: Galaxy-Eyes Tachyon Dragon” and the light dragon is “Number 62: Galaxy-Eyes Prime Photon Dragon”. The place where they clash is the Moon (this is given to us via Jinlon), and the “eyes of the galaxies” is not the eyes of the Galaxy-Eyes Dragons, but of the Numeron Dragon itself.

By fulfilling the conditions of the riddle, the Numeron Dragon is able to reawaken for a brief moment to fix whatever shit its children got themselves into “open the gates to a new world”. I take that this means it grants the usage of the Numeron Code upon the winner. 

But the phrase that interests me is “clash at thy place of birth”. 

Now, this states that Tachyon Dragon and Photon Dragon were created on the surface of the Moon and they need to fight to awaken the Numeron Dragon. This may seem like an odd choice because we’re under the presumption that Tachyon Dragon was made by Don Thousand or that the Number Cards (including “Number 62: Galaxy-Eyes Prime Photon Dragon”) were made by Astral when his memories scattered. 

But I think you have to consider how the Moon was made in this show, what the dragons represent, and what the Numbers are.

Okay, to keep it simple, in real life 4.5 billion years ago, a huge rock crashed into Earth, pushing a bunch of debris into space. The debris conglomerate together over time to form the Moon; as such, the Moon is primarily made of Earthly materials. This is slightly different from Zexal’s story, with the Numeron Dragon’s teardrop playing the role of the huge rock. The outcome is more or less the same.

Alright, so from here, we can start to theorize about Photon Dragon and Tachyon Dragon’s relationship to the Moon, and how Dragluon plays into this. After all, Dragluon is one of the dragons of the stone tablet despite not having a place in the riddle.  

So what is the role of Dragloun exactly? And how did the Numeron Dragon anticipate the fight between the Barians and the Astrals (aside from being an omni-force). 

For starters, Dragluon goes all the way back to the “three worlds” that Zexal has.

The Three Worlds of Zexal is sorta like Heaven, Hell, and Earth. Heaven for Astral World, Hell for Barian World, and then Earth as the, well, the Earth. The land of the living where your actions decide your fate. 

However, from Don Thousand, we know that the Heaven and Hell bits aren’t true. Not exactly, but Barian World and Astral World appear to function like it. The actual descriptions for Astral and Barian World is a little simpler than Heaven and Hell.

Order and Disorder, Cosmos and Chaos, these are the true depictions of Astral and Barian World rather than Heaven and Hell (although it does have a very nice ring to it). And at the center of things is the middle man, a balance of both—Earth. You can’t have two sides of a coin without the edge, and the Earth is the glue connecting the opposing sides. And for the sake of simplifying this, I’m going to call the “power” of Earth as Parity. 

Parity is what happens when Chaos and Cosmos meet. This could be most easily seen in the Zexal Morphs, which are a combination of Astral, a creature of the Cosmos, and Yuma, who is confirmed to be a fragment of Don Thousand, of Chaos. Blues and Reds respectively.

I also want to note that the three primary colors are often associated with heroes, while secondary colors are often associated with villains (these are trends, not a concrete black-and-white concept). 

When Astral and Yuma work together, they glow the last and primary color, yellow, for their Zexal Morphs. But when they are in disequilibrium, they glow the secondary color purple (also the color you make when you mix red and blue). This shows that there could be a distinct relationship between how Chaos and Cosmos interact each other: the outcome could be very good and improves upon the characteristics of each. Or it could lead to relentless self-destruction.  

Of course, sometimes a door is red because it’s just red. Nasch’s main color is purple and Don Thousand’s final form has a yellowish glow, so perhaps all these colors have zero correlation to the characters at all. These are just some observations I made when it comes to depicting each world with their respective colors.

But this may be what the Numeron Dragon meant when it was afraid that the Numeron Code could fall into the wrong hands. Not Barians or Astrals specifically, but the people of the Cosmos or people of Chaos abusing the Code’s powers to wipe each other out. This is exactly what Eliphas wanted to do because he saw Chaos as impure and limiting as well as Don Thousand for about the same reason.

To prevent this travesty, the Numeron Dragon sealed the Numeron Code away with the final key to it being itself, or “Number 100: Numeron Dragon”.

“Thy place of birth” may not mean that the dragons were literally born on the surface of the Moon, but it may mean that the impact that made the Moon also led to the creation of Chaos and Cosmos and Parity. By extension, this is where the dragons were truly born. Think of it as a stardust type of thing. Yeah, we humans are born on Earth probably by another human, but our atoms and molecules and elements? Those were made up in space. Tachyon Dragon was made by Don Thousand, but the Chaos he used to forge Tachyon Dragon was made on the Moon.

But onto the Numbers since all the dragons are Numbers and they get complicated so bear with me.

Okey, disclaimer and anyone is welcome to challenge my stance on what exactly Numbers are because they are absolutely limitless. We have Astral’s memory Numbers, Over-Hundred Numbers, those bug Barians Numbers, Imaginary Numbers, Mythyrian Numbers, Chaos Numbers made by Shark, Yuma, the Arclights, maybe Number XX yeah that guy remember him,,, 

and the only explanation we get for them is that they amplify emotions and take on the form of the beholder’s desires. At least, the first 100 Numbers do. Anyways please do, I like reading interpretations on what these things are. 

So I’m going to try to explain how I see it. 

My first statement is that Numbers are not a direct product of the Astrals ot Astral. My guess is that Numbers are a general manifestation of power made with either Chaos, Cosmos, or Parity. The Original 100 (aka Astral’s Memory Numbers) is made by the Numeron Dragon, as opposed to the ones made Don Thousand, for example. This explains why the Numeron Dragon is “Number 100”. If it is included as one of Astral’s memories, it’s kinda blasphemous ngl. 

My conclusion came from a certain flaw in the show’s logic (which is fine bc its yugioh but im trying to knot things together here). The show states that Astral knows where the Numeron Code is, so when his memories got scattered, the location scattered with it in the form of the Numbers. However, it is never stated how Astral knows its location. Like, who told him that? Eliphas? The only creature that should know is the Numeron Dragon, and it’s dead. A possible explanation is that the Numeron Dragon placed the coordinates of the Numeron Code in the first 100 Numbers, and since Astral had the Numbers, he knew where it was. 

But yet, why are the Numbers so dangerous if they were made by a benevolent God? They’re made by a God, for starters. They’re supposed to be ultra powerful and unfit for mortal hands. 

And if the Numbers lead to the Numeron Code, it may be that the Numeron Dragon didn’t want someone who couldn’t handle the 100 Numbers to be handling the all-powerful source code. 

We also know that the Numbers tend to absorb a handful of stuff. The Mythyrian Numbers took in the Guardians and “Number 96: Black Mist” had a piece of Don Thousand stuck on it. It is likely that the Numbers absorbed Astral’s memories, so when they scattered, they took his memories with them rather than the other way around.

Furthermore, Astral’s Airship is kinda of an enigma. Like, what is it? Who built it? Why can it do things like store all 100 Numbers as well as track down certain Numbers. If the Numbers are just Astral’s memories, how are they able to fit into the slots on the Airship, which isn’t part of Astral memories?

To go along with the Numbers being separate from Astral, it’s easy to say the Astral World built the Airship to harness the Numbers’ powers and knowledge. So it is likely that the mechanism behind the Airship was how Astral was going to find Numeron Code.

But simply put, Astral World probably collected most of the first 100 Numbers before the Barians did, created Astral and the Airship using the Numbers with the goal of fighting Don Thousand or going to Earth to find the Numeron Code so they could wipe out Barian World. Kinda like Silvally but he kills Barians. His original battle with Don Thousand and Kazuma’s meddling caused Astral to lose all the Number Cards he had (and since his only purpose and identity is tied to the Numbers, he lost all of his memories as well), allowing the Barians to scramble in to try to collect them before the Astrals can. This is why some Numbers were in the hands of the Barians, like “Numbers 80: Madness-Draped Supreme King - Rhapsody in Berserk” and “Numbers 58: Flame Pressure Demon - Burner Visor”

The Number Cards do not belong to either party; it just happened that Astral World managed to get them and use their powers first. This becomes important when we talk about Jinlon later.

The biggest plot hole that I can pick up is because of “Number 100: Numeron Dragon”. Astral definitely should not have that one. Astral might’ve gotten 99 at the very most, then lost the Mythyrians, Numeron Gates, and some other cards to Don Thousand, then the rest when he crashed into Yuma. 

It is possible that he never had all 100 Numbers, but who knows.

But back to the dragons:

“Number 100: Numeron Dragon″ can only be obtained when the “dragons of light and time clash” fight each other on the Moon. 

Mizael said that since the condition requires a Barian (or a Chaos) dragon, then the Numeron Code belongs to the Barians. 

And he’s about half right. The condition does requires a Chaos dragon, but I say that it also requires a Cosmos dragon and a Parity Dragon as well.

Cosmos and Chaos took shape in the form of Photon Dragon and Tachyon Dragon. Tachyon Dragon is obviously a creature born from the powers of Chaos while Photon Dragon is harder to pick up, but it is directly stated that it uses the power of the Astrals, or Cosmos.

And why as dragons? Ehh The Numeron Dragon is a dragon, and what better way than to battle in the image of the Creator. (also dragons are sick af)

The most peculiar concept is that the last Number can only be accessed when the Cosmos and Chaos are actively fighting against each other, and it’s strange to think that the Numeron Dragon would set up the situation where the strongest object in the Universe can only be achieved through war. 

But this is exactly where Dragluon, Jinlon, and Parity fit into this legend.

Dragluon (and Jinlon by association) are the representatives for Parity. 

Dragluon is often represented with the yellow colors of Earth in a similar manner of base-form Photon Dragon using the blues of Astral World or base-form Tachyon Dragon using the reds of Barian World. These are the three dragons representing the Three Worlds.

Unlike the other two, Jinlon/Dragluon is like a neutral observer. He is the balance sitting between Kaito and Mizael to watch the battle unfold and judge it.

It isn’t a coincidence that Dragluon is one of the dragons required to awaken the powers of the Numeron Dragon. If the dragon representing the balance between the two other worlds was not present to witness the battle, it is unlikely that the last Number would reveal itself, thus locking access to the key and Numeron Code. 

Also, the Moon itself is composed mainly of Earthly materials. Since the Earth is represented as Parity, the Moon is a neutral ground for the clash between Chaos and Cosmos. It does not favor the victory of one or the other (Jinlon got involved in the duel to awaken Mizael’s true memories, but other than that, he did not interrupt the flow of the duel between the Galaxy-Eyes. Mizael’s resolve as a Barian Emperor did not change with this encounter). 

Although situational, the presence of Parity also explains certain phenomenons that occurrs in areas where it’s presence is the strongest, particularly at Mizael’s ruins/Dragluon’s home and the Moon. Astral’s ship stopped working, Orbital 7 (whose energy supply runs on Barianite) couldn’t function properly, and Mizael cannot tap into his Barian powers.

The Moon appears to have the same effect on the characters until they enter the battle-zone, where the clashing parties are allowed to fight. Parity neutralizes the effects of Cosmos and Chaos. 

As to why Jinlon ascended into the role as the Mythyrian Number and the representative for Parity, I have a small theory for that. 

Jinlon is a divine dragon who is much older than the show made him out to be. I reckon that he was one of the first life made by the Numeron Dragon (image of god, you know) and he stated that he witnessed the original battle between Astral and Don Thousand. 

His choice of wording here is telling. He shows obvious disdain towards the war on both sides, and I think this intensified after his encounter with Mizael. 

Going back to the origins of Mizael, I want to talk about the colors of the Three Worlds once more. Now, I truly do not know if this is intentional, but the flashback to Mizael’s childhood has heavy usage of the blue, red, and yellow color palette.    

When Mizael fled from the massacred village, the village lighted up due to the flames burning his home to the ground down while the surrounding sand was blue due to the darkness of the night. In this sense, Mizael is running from the source of his anger and sadness into freedom and safety, or from disorder to order. But the deeper he went in, the desert proved to not be the safe place he desired. The desert shifted between the intense Barian reds and Astral blues as Mizael transversed the landscape. 

And Mizael was dying during these scenes. It’s almost as though he’s being persuaded into two worlds; either ascend with grief to become a Barian, or let it all go to become an Astral. 

It was Jinlon who came to save Mizael. Like, I feel like I’m repeating myself a lot, but Jinlon appeared to Mizael with the colors of Parity. He engulfed Mizael in it and prevented him from entering either of the worlds too soon. Jinlon is a being who exists outside of Barian and Astral World’s conflicts. 

This is why he became Dragluon. Jinlon is already a creature of Parity with or without his association to Dragluon, and thus his death and closeness to the Mythyrian Number + Mizael resulted in his attachment to “Number 46: Ethereal Dragon Dragluon”, the ultimate dragon representing Parity. 

To that whole bit with the Astral’s Numbers, this is why Dragluon being made from Astral’s memories, as well as the other stuff I stated, doesn’t make much sense. (Maybe without the meddling of Don Thousand, instead of becoming an Astral when he died, Mizael may have shared a fate similar to Jinlon and been reborn as a creature of Parity given how often he is associated with the yellow colors. Maybe, just thinking).

As a neutral force, Jinlon leads the dragon-tamers down what they think is the correct path for the future. 

Aside from being convenient to the plot, Jinlon spends time with Kaito and Mizael. And likewise, Mizael and Kaito are characters who tether dangerously close to the line between Cosmos and Chaos. Kaito starts off as a heartless, cold killer, after all, and Mizael is strange for an antagonist; even going as far as fighting Don Thousand, the actual villain of the show (but most of the barians are like this for a reason that I’ll explain once I get to Vector). Although Mizael is massively arrogant and despises humans, he also commended the Arclights for sacrificing themselves, and he puts his true heart and loyalty out for the Barians. To add onto this, after acquiring his true memories, Mizael is adamant that he is still a creature of Chaos, and so he fights for Barian World despite his past leading him to be an Astral.

Yes, this isn’t a single case either. Alito was the first to recognize his past as a true Astral, yet he continues to fight for Barian World. Nasch is the strongest case for this, as he willingly chose to be a Barian. Chaos is not synonymous with evil. 

But back to Mizael. Mizael is someone who is dead-set on being a Barian no matter the circumstance. He fights for Barian World from what he knows of that world. He knows that his people aren’t evil (look, Barian World got Iris, alright) and he knows that Barian World is where his cherished allies and companions live. He lived as a Barian Emperor for possibly thousands of years. His commitment and love for dragons is also his most commendable trait. Mizael is a man who puts his trust in dragons, good or bad. Despite being a creature of Chaos, he also bears certain Cosmos traits. 

The same could be said for Kaito too. Kaito is supposed to be of the Cosmos as indicated by his usage of Prime Photon Dragon, yet his passion is much weaker than Mizael. Bluntly put, Kaito is selfish. The show states this. He uses Photon Dragon not out of respect for dragons but because it ended up being the easiest path to save Haruto and Dr. Faker. He lacks the heart that would make him a true Astral. 

The characters change. 

Mizael sheds a tear for an enemy, a repulsive human of all things, and Kaito wants them to meet again one day not as enemies but as friends. 

They represent both worlds, but they can meet in the middle too.

This nuisance is why I think Jinlon exists as the creature guiding them towards this fight. He brings out the Parity between Cosmos and Chaos. He not only finds two souls that represent both worlds, but also how both worlds can intermix. 

And hey, Kaito won the Moon Duel, essentially winning the future for Astral World. But it was Mizael who made it out alive. In a way, there was no true winner of the Moon Duel.

I wanna get back to this image right here.  

I could talk about how Tachyon Dragon is based on tachyon particles, which are hypothetical particles faster than light, and how Photon Dragon represents light through photon particles, or how Dragluon is based off of gluons, the elementary exchange particles that are essential for the force binding neutrons and protons together, the atoms that make matter and life possible.

But you know um. I’m actually not that smart and am not qualified to talk about those relationships.

Yet, I think it’s telling that the three dragons representing the Three Worlds emit a yellow glow as they awaken the Numeron Dragon.

When the Numeron Dragon made the Universe and the Numeron Code, it did not want a clash between Cosmos and Chaos to see who deserves to survive. It didn’t want its creations to destroy each other. It wanted them to clash on the Moon so they can prove that despite the war, despite the hatred, despite the meddling, both sides are capable of finding Parity, that peace is possible between them, that Kaito and Mizael can meet eye-to-eye and sympathize with each other.  The dragons were no longer fighting as Cosmos or Chaos but as Parity.

The Numeron Dragon will only grant access to the Numeron Code to the persons that are worthy of it. In the end, Mizael and Kaito were both worthy of obtaining “Number 100: Numeron Dragon” because they proved themselves as people capable of Parity. 

Call me a dreamer, but I think that’s why the final fight belongs to the characters that represent the Three Worlds. Nasch of the Barians, Kaito who wields the power of the Astrals, and not Yuma or Astral but Zexal III, the strongest combination of Chaos and Cosmos. 

These three worlds are able to work together to defeat Don Thousand, a person who would’ve used the Numeron Code for only destruction and personal gain. 

Kaito and Zexal III (although I’m not sure if this is different from Yuma and Astral as individuals, ceremonial duel and all) is explanatory in their stance on Parity, but Nasch is the outlier since he would’ve used the Numeron Code to destroy Astral World, or maybe he has some other motive if he had won the duel. Nasch saw the destruction of Astral World as a necessary evil for the survival of Barian World, but he also seemed okay with losing. It’s possible that he might’ve found a different way for all worlds to coexist had he won. So does the duel with Nasch afterwards ruin the duel with Don Thousand? Who knows. That depends on what value you see from that duel. 

(And not to get into a rant, but part of me wished the final boss was a Dark-Zexal-esque Morph between Eliphas and Don Thousand, the corrupted combination of two Gods with selfish intents fighting against Nasch, Zexal III, and Kaito. Like mmmm) 

I derailed quite a bit from talking about Jinlon and Mizael and the Ruins, but I find it so fascinating how much these two characters reveal about the world of Zexal.

[damienthepious]

Hello i love y’all and i wrote more of ridiculous knight and ridiculous lizzermonster dancing because i am hopeless, hopeless, absolutely hopeless

Even With Missteps (Chapter 2)

[Ch 1] [ao3] [Ch 3] [Ch 4] [???]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Sir Damien/Rilla, Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla, Lord Arum/Sir Damien

Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla, (other characters mentioned)

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Dancing, Costume Parties & Masquerades

Summary:  There is a masquerade ball in the Citadel tonight. Every knight and citizen has turned out, and all of them bear disguises of monstrosity. What better time could there be, for a monster who needs to find a way inside?

Chapter Summary:  Is he still a thief, if he returns what he has stolen?

Chapter Notes: I straight fucking lied when i said this was complete with the first chapter. I just never thought I would actually finish this chapter too. Fam i am so far gone on this mess. They're sending me to space. This is. Too Tense. Happy Lizard Kissin' Tuesday!!! ;3 Also chapter specific warning for a brief moment of (what i would call canon-typical) mild suicidal ideation on Arum's part. Just one parenthetical, really, but please take care of yourself if that's an issue for you! <3

~

Arum hears the rustle behind him, the distinct sound of an arrow being nocked, and he scowls beneath the warm copper of his mask in self-deprecation. Too distracted, tonight. Altogether too distracted-

“Do not move, villain,” says a clear, sharp, familiar voice, and Arum grits his teeth. To keep from barking out a laugh, for the most part. “A knight of the Crown shall not suffer an intruder in her majesty’s chambers, not even on a night of such inverted morals as this.”

Arum does not move. He drops his hands from the closet in front of him, the silk catching on his claws, but he does not turn towards the human he suspects is standing at his back when he murmurs, “How did you know I was here?”

“A keen-eyed attendee happened to catch sight of your ascent,” the voice says, wry and insulted. “And the manner of your climb would suggest that either you have an inhuman proclivity for scaling walls, or that you are, in fact, inhuman altogether. A monster, intruding upon our Citadel. So, which is it, fiend? Am I placing you under arrest, or does this arrow fly now?”

“I was under the impression we were all monsters tonight,” Arum says, tilting his head, turning just enough to look over his shoulder. “And I thought that you were enjoying playing so, little basilisk.”

Sir Damien’s aim does not waver, but his eyes widen, his expression cracking into flushed surprise. “Ah- Arum?”

“Honeysuckle,” Arum greets, turning more fully, and Damien stares down the shaft of his arrow at him like a stunned rabbit. The little knight is still in his costume, still staring out from between sharp little fangs, but he appears to have summoned a quiver to go along with that bow of his.

Arum could bolt. It would not be difficult. He is quick enough that he knows he could dodge that arrow before it pierces him. He could almost certainly leap to the window, or pounce upon the knight himself, or rush past him to the door.

He stands still, though. He stares at Sir Damien, and certainly it is curiosity and nothing more that holds him in place. Will the little knight fire? Will he try to fight? Arum’s palm remembers the shape of Damien’s hip and he clenches his jaw tight and tilts his head, watching, waiting to see if the little basilisk intends to strike.

"What-" Damien pauses, cheeks dark, bow steady. "What are you doing up here?"

"Oh," Arum says. "Intruding, and taking what does not belong to me. Obviously."

Damien laughs, bright and surprised, and Arum swallows down the urge to step closer. "A thief," he chimes, and without taking his eyes off of Arum he shakes his head. "And so brazen about it, are you?"

"I do not see why you should be surprised, honeysuckle," Arum says with a shrug. "I stole from you already, did I not?"

Damien blinks. "You- what?" The knight looks, for a moment, half tempted to check his pockets.

"I stole a dance. A rather daring theft, if I do say so myself, considering the obvious deadliness of my mark."

Damien laughs again, and Arum tries not to feel it as a victory. The knight seems entirely determined not to drop his aim, after all, and it isn't as if the laughter on its own is of any value, regardless of the strange way it makes Arum's hands flex.

"Are you armed, then, thief?" Damien asks, and then it is Arum's turn to laugh.

"Quite," he says. "Though I do not see the point of drawing knives upon an archer."

“So…” Damien tilts his head, his eyes narrowing, more curiosity than suspicion. “You intend to come into custody, then?”

“Not at all, honeysuckle.”

“I do not wish to fire upon you, friend dragon, but you seem keen on making that quite difficult for me,” Damien says, and his brow is furrowed though his voice is still bright.

“I am aware,” Arum says.

Damien stares at him, the moment stretching out as Arum watches the human, as the tightened bow waits for ease in one of two ways.

“Remove your mask,” Damien says, at length, and Arum can’t help the laugh, then.

“Are you certain, honeysuckle?” Arum asks, and he does not bother to conceal the way his voice goes halfway to purr. “Is that truly what you desire? You seemed quite concerned, when we danced, about not betraying… how did you put it… the spirit of the event. Has that changed?”

“We are not dancing any longer,” Damien says, quite seriously. “You have revealed yourself as a thief. That is what has changed.”

“Oh, is that all that concerns you?” Arum says, and then he does take a step closer, finally. Damien raises the bow another inch, but Arum does not stop. He is curious. Terribly curious. How far must he push, for this knight to do his duty? How many steps must Arum take, for the knight to fire?

(Certainly he can avoid the arrow, but even if he is mistaken it will be an acceptable outcome. If he is killed here, the Senate will not have the patience to wait for his replacement to grow enough to be useful to them. They will have no hold left upon the Keep, it will be useless to them without a familiar, an interpreter. His death will be unfortunate but it will still serve his purpose, it will still protect his home in however an unpleasant way, though for some strange reason he cannot seem to make himself believe that Damien actually will- that the knight will-)

“Stop,” Damien says, his authoritative tone cracking uncertainly in the middle. “Do not take another step or I shall-”

“We could dance again, if that is what you would prefer,” Arum says, ignoring his words and creeping another step closer. “I can still hear the music from below - quite fascinating acoustics, this tower seems to have - and there is enough room here to take another turn together.”

“I will not fall for your tactics of distraction,” Damien says, but he still has not fired, and Arum is still moving, still closing the distance. “I will do my duty-”

“If you do intend do shoot me, honeysuckle, you will need to do so before I am too close to shoot,” Arum says, mildly, and the tip of the arrow is mere inches from his chest. “Or, you may dance with me again, and perhaps when we are done I will give you what you request. I will show you my face, and then you may decide if you intend to follow through and loose your arrow at last.”

The arrowhead scrapes the purple of his cape, tickles his scales through the fabric, and Damien is looking up at him with such uncertainty that Arum can nearly hear the shouting in his mind. He can certainly hear the shouting of his heart, hammering away in that chest, and the sweet sharpness of his breath.

“I stole a dance from you downstairs, honeysuckle,” Arum says, quite softly, and then he lifts a hand. “Would you give one to me freely, now?”

“I-” Damien stares at him, his eyes so clear and bright beneath his mask. “I… I cannot hear the music, from here,” he murmurs, and Arum could laugh- the limited sensory ability of humans strikes again, it seems.

“I can hear it well enough for both of us,” he says, feeling reckless and absurd, his hand still in the air, and he knows he has won when Sir Damien breathes a laugh and, at last, he lowers his bow.

Such a naive little fool, Arum thinks without heat as Damien drops his arrow back into the quiver, as he puts his weapon away, as he eyes Arum curiously. Such a ridiculous trick to fall for.

Any moment now, Arum will set upon the knight. Damien’s warm hand takes his own, and he slots his body close to Arum’s again. Any moment. At any breath, Arum will knock this knight to the ground. Will set on him with his knives, will claw him open. Will escape. Damien raises an eyebrow, and looks up at Arum for the length of a few long, quiet breaths.

“You will have to lead, of course,” he reminds, softly. “The music is in your ears, Arum, not mine.”

This is the moment, of course. There is a task before Arum, and this knight is in the way. He and his pretty voice and his careful steps and his clever face. He is in the way. Arum is supposed to remove him, now. To perform the task that he must.

Arum begins to dance.

It is a slower turn than the one they took together down below. The band is playing gentler, now, easing the crowd into the middle of the evening. Damien follows deftly although he cannot hear the beat, his eyes a little guarded, and Arum feels strangely helpless before that gaze. He begins to hum along with the melody as he moves, and then the corner of Damien’s mouth curls up just slightly. That feels helpless as well.

“I know this tune,” Damien murmurs, swaying in Arum’s arms. He begins to hum as well, then, harmonizing with Arum as they move, the ease of the notes making something in Arum’s stomach twist oddly.

Arum almost doesn’t notice their movements gentling, doesn’t realize that the steps they are taking together are softening until the both of them are barely moving at more than a sway, and Arum does not think he could grow accustomed to Damien’s unwavering heat pressed close against him if they danced like this for the fullness of a year. Something about it makes him breathless, and he can hear the way his little basilisk’s heart is thudding, faster than the beat of the song.

“Arum,” Damien murmurs, and Arum realizes that they have stopped moving, now, as Damien peers up at him from beneath his costume fangs. “I…” he pauses again, licks his lips, and then quirks them up into a hesitant smile. “I did not know dragons had such lovely voices.”

Arum breathes a laugh before he can stop himself, his hands on Damien’s sides squeezing lightly. “We don’t, little flatterer. You, however- I knew you had music in your voice downstairs. Even in speaking it rings like bells. A fine trait for a poet to possess, I should think.”

“Oh.” Damien laughs as well, eyes bright and playful. “Oh, you cannot call me the flatterer when you speak so, Arum.”

“I suppose that is fair enough,” Arum says. Damien cannot see his answering smile behind the mask, and so he does not bother to try to hide it. “Then I will content myself to thank you for the compliment.”

Damien’s hands are easy and soft on Arum’s shoulders, and the knight stares up at him for a long moment before he clears his throat.

“Has- has the song ended, then?”

Arum blinks. “What?”

“You’ve stopped dancing.”

“O-oh.” Arum bites back a whirring rattle of embarrassment, and makes himself give a stilted laugh instead, pretending not to be strangely overwhelmed by the amused look the poet is giving him as he stammers. “No, it is still- I- I was simply- distracted-”

“Sir Damien?”

The booming voice is muffled by wood and stone, but it is not distant enough for comfort and it drops down Arum’s throat like a chunk of ice. Damien looks similarly stunned as they both jolt, surprise making Arum loosen his snug grip around Damien’s midsection.

“Sir Damien, have you found the intruder yet? There was nothing in the eastern tower-”

“Angelo,” Damien mutters, his expression a little wild, and then he looks up at Arum with fear and guilt both clear in his eyes, his own hands pressed to Arum’s chest.

“It seems our time has run out before our dance is finished, honeysuckle,” Arum murmurs, and he is torn between the urge to laugh and the urge to bury his face in his claws and scream. “I admit- I admit I am disappointed.”

Damien makes a choking sort of noise, and it shifts into something of a laugh as he steps back, pulling himself from Arum’s softened grasp. “Yes, I- I am as well. But-”

Arum sees the sharpness that has returned to Damien’s eyes, the stiffness that has returned to his posture.

“You have your duty, Sir Damien,” Arum murmurs. He will not die for this little knight, no. He may- Arum may have some strange fondness for him, may have made some foolish allowances, but- there is a window within reach and if he needs he can easily knock this human to the ground, at the very least-

Sir Damien does not draw his bow again, however.

He stands, only a foot or so away from Arum but distant and cool, now, and he mutters tranquility under his breath three times like some sort of spell, and then he straightens his spine as he meets Arum’s eyes again.

“My duty,” Damien echoes, frowning. “You do not belong here in these chambers, of course, but- had you-” Damien hesitates, his hands flexing awkwardly at the strap of his quiver. “Had you taken anything before I found you, Arum?”

Arum works his jaw, clenching his teeth for a long moment before he answers, realizing only as Damien asks that he has been- utterly distracted from his purpose by this little diversion. “No,” he admits in a hiss. “I was not expecting interruption quite so soon.”

“Then it seems that the only person you have stolen from,” Damien says, “is me. If you remove yourself from these chambers, there will be no further cause for conflict or alarm.”

Arum stares down at the knight. “You… you are… full of surprises, little honeysuckle.”

“You stole a dance, as you said. I think in giving you another, we have evened that score. The only other thing you stole from me-”

He pauses, and Arum hears the poet’s heart stumble, hears his breathing pitch a little strange.

“What… what else have I stolen, little basilisk?”

Damien steps closer again, and Arum smothers another compulsive noise as Damien’s hands find his shoulders. “A kiss.”

Arum blinks, and Damien bites his lip before he meets Arum’s eyes to continue, lifting his hands further to very, very lightly cup the cheeks of Arum’s mask, a thumb brushing down one of his stylized teeth.

“It was a rather innocent one, and with this barrier between us, of course. And I- I believe you told me that when we finished our dance, you would remove your mask.” Damien inhales, unsteady, before he continues, “Show me your face, Arum, and return the kiss you stole, and- and I shall have no cause to call you a thief. I will be content to consider this a mistake, and you may leave without harm.”

Arum realizes that his own heart is pounding, too, from some combination of desire and despair. He wants-

Arum wants many foolish things, just now. This ridiculous human revelry has caught him up in its net, and his mind is spinning with song and heat and touch and laughter and all of this has been too much like a dream, too much altogether, and if he means to survive, he must wake up.

Letting Sir Damien know the face of the monster he has been in the arms of for much of the evening might serve to do just that, Arum thinks, perhaps a little wildly. This dream will certainly not survive that shock. Not for either of them.

Arum inhales, swallows, and with his heart still pounding he nods.

“If those are your terms, honeysuckle,” he says, his voice low in the effort not to shake. “Lift my mask, then. I shall do as you say, return the kiss I stole, and then I will- I will leave.”

Damien stares up at him, his eyes flicking between Arum’s, and after a moment his gentle hands push the mask up, and just as Arum suspected the knight’s eyes go wide with shock when he sees Arum’s face through the dark.

Damien seems stunned to stillness, near to a statue, and Arum can hear the footsteps of the other unwelcome humans slowly growing closer, and Arum still feels mad with this evening, still feels the rhythm of his heart or the rhythm of the dance downstairs beating through his very bones, and Damien has not leapt instantly to attack and that is certainly only the shock of Arum as he truly is, but-

Before Arum can reconsider, he leans down.

He is only doing as Damien asked, of course.

Damien makes a muffled noise as the thin line of Arum’s lips presses against his own, and Arum barely knows what he is doing but Damien kisses back after only the briefest of pauses and the heat of his skin is even more pleasant like this, his breath even sweeter when gasped against Arum’s scales, and Arum realizes that he has lifted his hands to cup Damien’s face only after he has already done so.

Damien breaks the kiss but does not pull back just yet, pressing his forehead against Arum’s as they both breathe, as they both find their footing again.

“Have I provoked you to bite, yet, little basilisk?” Arum hisses against Damien’s lips, and the poet gasps, his hands flexing against Arum’s shoulders.

“Sir Damien?”

The voice is far too close for comfort, now, likely only a room or so away. Arum does not have time to understand what he has just done, what Damien has allowed. He only has survival. The other knights-

They will not be like his little basilisk. He knows that, at the very least.

Damien stumbles back a step, pressing a hand to his mouth with his cheeks painted so very dark, and when he lifts his eyes to meet Arum’s again, Arum-

Arum hears the latch move on the door. The song is over, and they are out of time.

Arum flips his mask back down over his face, stares at Damien for only one more heartbeat, and then he turns to spring towards the window, back into the night and the noise outside.

[whump-the-caretaker]

Shifter pt. 3

previous / about the characters / next 

Avery woke, head pounding with whatever had put him out, and squinted up to see where he was. 

A cot. Small room sealed by a glass wall. A lab.

He jolted up off the cot and searched for… there. Beck. His stomach twisted, his eyes sticking when they landed on the table and the box holding his husband.

“No,” he breathed.

Beck was watching him from across the room, human this time and sitting with his knees drawn to his chest. The glass case was just as horrifying in the morning as it had been the night before, size and shape more akin to a dog kennel than anything that should be holding a person. His clothes were in shreds around him, apparently torn in a shift. 

“Are you okay? What’s happeni--” 

Beck shook his head shortly, eyes flicking sideways to something just out of sight. Avery frowned, moving to the glass wall separating them, and craned to see. 

The man who'd caught him, who'd stopped him from breaking through to Beck, was adjusting some sort of camera setup, pointed at Beck. Another sweep of fury flushed through him. 

The man nodded, pressing a button on the recorder and then scooped up a box that looked like an MRE. He watched him cross to Beck, slide it into the case through a quickly sealed slot and wait. 

Beck glanced at him and then picked up the box, flipping it open and wrinkling his nose in disgust. “What the fuck is this?”

“You were the one demanding food. That’s what you’re going to get for today. I’m sure you can think of something that can eat that.”

“Go to hell,” he growled, shoving it away and putting a hand under his nose to block out the smell. 

The man shrugged and turned away, heading for Avery’s holding room instead. 

“I really do apologize for this,” he said as he approached the cell wall. His entire demeanor had changed, and something about the shift made Avery deeply uncomfortable. “I hope you’ll understand, I can’t let you interfere. Whether you agree or not, we’ve already begun the process and stopping now would jeopardize the results.”

“What results?” Avery demanded. “What process?”

“Understanding of the shifter biology is very limited. The extremes of their capabilities have never truly been tested. I’ve begun the work with several others of the type, but never long term and never outside of… shall we say a more supervised study.”

“This is the first time you’ve kidnapped someone, you’re saying.”

“Now, that’s rather harsh. I’m only borrowing it from you for a short time. I’ll give it back when I’m finished.”

The hair on the back of Avery’s neck stood on end. “Did you just call my husband an it?”

“It’s a shifter.”

“He’s a person.”

“Mm. Interesting." He just looked at Avery for a moment, like he was curious about the idea. The idea that Avery thought Beck was a person. "Now, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to keep you here a little while. Can’t have you breaking in every time I turn my back. I’ll do my utmost to keep you comfortable.”

The man glanced back at Beck, who appeared to be focused on trying not to gag at the smell coming off of whatever was in the box. “I’ll be back tomorrow to see if we can’t get you into a few new shapes."

Beck flipped him off and waited for him to leave the room. 

“What the fuck?” Avery breathed when they were alone again. 

“He’s a piece of shit,” Beck muttered, cutting off with a dry heave. 

“What did he give you?” 

“Rotten meat.”

“Shit.” Avery smacked the glass wall. “Has he hurt you? What has he been doing?”

“Just making me shift. I’m fine.”

Avery doubted it.

“Goddamn it,” Beck growled, kicking his legs out against the side of the case in frustration. If he didn’t do something, he was going to puke, empty stomach or not, and it would only smell worse. “This is disgusting.” 

He pressed his eyes closed and reached for shapes he didn’t usually call on. Vulture, hyena, corvid… He ended up a coyote, the most familiar carrion eater he had, and was grateful for the moment that animals didn’t feel embarrassed the way humans did. The shame was still in his mind as he set his muzzle down and consumed the revolting contents of the box, but it didn’t have the same bite to it. He cleaned the scraps until even his sensitive nose couldn’t detect any traces.

Finished, he went to shift back and froze. It wasn’t the eating part that was dangerous as a human. It was the digesting. 

He was stuck.

Fuck. 

Unable to stop a low whine escaping his throat, he backed up until he was pressed into the corner, instincts driving him to put a wall at his back and lay down with his head on his paws. He was just going to have to wait it out. 

***

He startled awake and back to human form at a clatter near his cage. 

The man was there, setting up various instruments on the table beside the glass. Beck shivered with alarm that he’d gotten so close without waking him. Was it just the exhaustion settling in?

“Now,” he said, seeing Beck sitting up and eyeing him warily. “We really do need to get down to business.” 

“Leave me alone,” he protested. Despite his best efforts, it came out weak more than defiant. His mouth tasted foul from his meal as a coyote, and the dull ache of too much shifting was only settling deeper into his bones despite the rest.

The man ignored him. “Your clothes obviously didn’t shift with you, but your tattoos do. At what point does a foreign object start to shift with your body?”

Beck shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Of course you don’t. That’s why we’re finding out. Now, you don’t have any piercings. Strange for someone with tattoos.”

“The holes stay but not the studs,” Beck answered, eager to skip the trial of that. 

“Hmm. You demonstrated last night that stomach contents remain in their foreign body state until digested.”

Beck flinched, eyes snapping to the camera. He hadn’t known he was giving the man anything when he did that. 

The man nodded, seeming to reach a conclusion. He selected one of the marbles and readied the airhole plugs. 

“Wait, no,” Beck sat up straight. “Keep that shit away from me. I won’t--” The marble dropped in beside him and he grabbed for it, wanting to push it back out. But the holes were already plugged and the glass shattered under his fingers. 

The gas smelled sweet this time, coiling up and coating his nostrils. He pressed away from it and braced himself, waiting, but a shift didn’t come. When he went to look up at the man, ask what had happened, he found he couldn’t move. 

He heard the sensor chime and the top of the case open.

Panic was enough to trigger a groan and roll of his head, but that was all the movement he could manage. 

“I don’t know how I’m expected to keep sanitary conditions...” he grumbled to himself, gathering the empty ration boxes, broken spheres, scraps of soiled clothing. 

A cold, damp cloth wiped over Beck’s skin, spot cleaning. He heard Avery swearing, but it only made the violation strike deeper. The alcohol swab felt the same as the other cleaning, and he couldn’t see to prepare himself, so the first incision in his shoulder came as a shock. 

No, no, no.

“N--” His tongue was heavy, refused to choke out the word. He felt a series of prods and scrapes, a set of stitches, and then the stick of medical tape. “No.” 

The lid closed, locked again, and the man stepped away, cleaning up the mess now on the table beside him. He put the tools away, spoke calmly in the face of Avery’s fuming demands, and arrived back at the case as Beck was getting control enough to push himself up. 

“What have you done to me?” he slurred.

“It’s a small implant. Just to see. Now, I need your cooperation for this next part, so listen to me very closely.“

Beck shuddered. 

“Shift down. A mouse will do. Stay for at least ten seconds.”

Beck was afraid.

He’d been angry in this place, he’d been violated, but this time he was afraid. He shook his head, though, obstinately sure he couldn’t bring himself to cooperate.

“How about I pick for you?” he asked, holding up one of the spheres.

“How about you shove it up your ass?”

“If something goes wrong, you’re not going to want to be stuck. Now. Shift.”

"Leave him alone," Avery snapped from across the room.

Avery. He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath.

Just one shape.

It was better than Avery seeing him screaming if he was forced into something and suffering.

He shifted.

Fear was not a good place to begin when slipping into a rodent’s mind. They were fearful creatures and, combined with the searing pain in his flank, his heart was set racing out of control. 

He held, tried to count, panicked, tried to count, three, four--he couldn’t hold it. The mouse fled and he was dumped back on the floor a human, twisting to get a hand to his shoulder with a strangled cry. 

He heard Avery shouting from across the room, but the words didn’t register to his pain shocked brain.

“Fuck,” he gasped. “Jesus. What the fuck did you do to me?”

“Mm.” the man said, displeased. “It’s come out,” he pointed out.

Beck’s hand came away dripping in blood and holding a solid chunk of something. A metal device the size of a quarter, rounded on the back like a half sphere. He dropped it to bring his hand to stop the flow of blood. The man had taken all the scraps of fabric from his clothes, so there was nothing to use to stem the blood. 

“Subcutaneous metal is rejected…” The man was talking to himself. Beck ground his teeth. “I’ll go see what we have in development. Clean yourself up.”

Only the last part was said to Beck. He dropped gauze, a few antiseptic wipes, and a roll of tape onto a tray and slid it in to Beck.

Beck waited until he was gone to move, to take any of the items he’d been given. 

“Beck?” Avery’s voice broke. 

He flinched at the reminder that his husband was watching him get tortured. “I’m sorry you have to see this.” 

Avery kicked the wall between them. “I’m getting us out of here. I swear to you, okay?”

Beck smiled tightly and nodded.

[sparkledeerfr]

Other people: Work for years to gain power, notoriety, and a title.

Adeline: WHY GUYS

(Yup, it’s the slight continuation of this. No warnings.)

“OKAY,” Adeline said, putting both hands on the podium and gripping it, trying not to let her frustration boil over as she stared down at the papers in front of her. They had gathered in the city square to hear the results of the vote, a thing that rarely happened, and there had never been this many people that had decided to show up.

That they had set out folding chairs and a drink and snack table and were now all looking up at her, trying not to giggle, told her they knew exactly what they’d done, and if one person wasn’t directly involved they still wanted to watch this. Even August and Jesse were hanging out at the back, clearly entertained.

“First of all I’d like to remind everyone what happened with the last two votes,” Adeline started. “‘What Should Our Emblem Be’ had the top three picks of, and I quote: ‘One) A Bagel. Two) A Butt, and Three) A Nice Butt.’” There were scattered giggles across those gathered, maybe from what she said and maybe because they knew she was mad at them and thought it was hilarious. Probably that one. “Our last attempt to name the overall city ended up with five people voting, and the top result was ‘Robot Moron Empire’.”

She paused to lean on the podium and look out over the gathered crowd, most looking back up at her with a smile, waiting. Might as well get this over with. “So how in the hell,” she paused again when she heard an ‘oooo’ from someone at the swear. “With sixty-seven percent participation-”

“Missed it by two!” Sparks called out.

“Did this get voted in?” Adeline continued. She glanced to West who was casually leaning back with his arm slung over the back of the chair, flanked by Sparks, Viltri and Sefka. “Granted there were two votes for ‘No’,” she said in a lower voice, knowing those two came from Katsu and Walter respectively. “And three for ‘water slide’ but…”

“That was us,” August said, leaning over to talk to Jesse in a lower voice. She nodded and patted his shoulder. “Woulda been neat, is all I’m saying.”

“Stop stalling and read it!” West said in a rare moment of him raising his voice.

“Fine, fine,” Adeline muttered, staring down at the paragraph in front of her. “‘In regards to what should be done about The Castle, it shall be put in place that from the moment of this being voted in and read, that it will serve as Adeline’s new office space. Adeline will live in The Castle and will henceforth be granted the title of….Queen,” she faltered at the word and looked up with a sigh, everyone attempting to sit still and waiting for her to finish. “Failure to do so on the part of Adeline will result in new titles and honorifics being added on a once per week basis until this law is complied with. Examples include ‘Empress’, ‘Pope’ and ‘Blessed Holy Wanderer.’ More elaborate items of clothing and headwear will also be purchased in accordance said timeline, the money coming from the account listed in...you know what I’m skipping that part.”

“Time starts now by the way!”

“‘The Castle will be used as Adeline sees fit, including continuing the allowance of those already in said castle and office to reside there or move. PS- We voted this in so you either have to do it or you can ignore us and admit laws are bullshit. Ha ha got you now, sucker’,” she finished, rubbing the bridge of her nose with a finger. “Who the hell wrote this?”

West raised a hand. “Viltri helped,” he said when Ade’s eyes landed on him.

“I- I just added a few things,” Viltri replied, trying not to stammer at being singled out. “To make it more clear, you understand.”

“Yep...yep I do,” Adeline said, nodding. “Well, I’m going to take a few minutes to think about this. Thank you all for coming and participating, I hate all of you except apparently like twelve of you. You’re welcome to stay and chat or drink.”

“Oh man, we get to do a castlewarming and coronation party!” Sparks said, raising both her hands as Adeline walked away and into the winding streets of the city, intent on finding Walter. She didn’t notice that one figure raised from his seat and followed.

----

“Addeeeee,” Grenfell said, watching her eye a building that she was about to climb up. She paused and turned around.

“Yeah, Gren?” she said, sighing and reaching out for Pietro, who climbed from his father’s shoulders and into her arms. It was kind of weird holding him, as he felt somewhat...soft, like a hairless animal covered in strange adornments, but he liked being petted. “He’s still kinda skinny. Has he been eating?” Adeline asked, looking down and scratching gently on his neck.

“Yes, he eats quite a bit,” Grenfell said. “Remember I had to apologise for it.”

“He ate someone’s pet,” Adeline replied, continuing to scratch as Pietro’s odd sickly purr started up. He was directly in between ‘kind of sweet’ and ‘something that might burrow directly into your midsection’, but thus far giving him affection when he wanted had worked. “He might have a blockage. That happens with animals sometimes.”

“Look he’s fine, and that person should maybe have thought about teaching their stupid fangar to run faster,” Grenfell said, snarling and showing those long fangs he had. “You’re distracting me. Shut up a second and let me think of what I was going to say.” She waited, knowing him snapping was irritation at having lost his train of thought, not any actual anger directed at her. “Ah! Yes! I wanted to tell you that I’d be very happy to formally give ownership of the city over to you, since I technically built it. That combined with Nimue releasing the castle will make everything official. A short line but a long history here, one might say.”

“That’s...” she said, crossing her arms under Pietro and holding him like a baby. He noticed that she seemed drained and tired as she looked up and closed her eyes. “My problem isn’t the legality or lineage or whatever.”

“Then,” he said, tilting his head, not understanding. “What is? Most people would be very happy to be royalty, and it could be fun.”

“Gren,” she said, taking out a hand and clutching her fingers slightly in irritation as her voice changed to a sort of raised whisper, the tone people used when they wanted to yell but didn’t want anyone else to actually hear them. “I have no idea how to run a damn kingdom! None! I have no training! I don’t know how any of that works! And neither does anyone else aside from West, who won’t tell me because he thinks it’s funny! Everyone’s lucky I know how to goddamn read considering my background, and now I’ve just gotta stumble through figuring out how to be royalty? It's not some joke- everyone expects things from a Queen and I’m not it.” Grenfell pulled his head back slightly, assessing what she said for a moment as Adeline touched the hand to her forehead. “Look, you didn’t-” she started when he began laughing.

The laughter continued for longer than probably necessary, him bending over and putting a hand on a knee. “That’s it? That’s the problem?” he said in between gasps as though he had to get his breath back. Pietro’s stolen dog ears perked as he watched this play out.

“Yeah, I mean,” she said, tucking the hand back under Piet. “There’s a huge difference between being some resort town and being a kingdom. It's a whole different game and ...I don’t know if I can play it. I don’t want to put everyone in danger.”

“My, I forget how limited people’s thinking is,” Gren said, straightening himself. “Don’t you get it, Adeline? It's all made up! Rules, laws, formality, it's all a game like you said. Do you think the gods descended and declared what the proper fork to use is?”

“I...” Adeline paused, bouncing Pietro nervously. “I guess not?”

“Everyone’s stuck in a little box, hoping that the other person won’t figure out that they’re not holding all the right cards. They say things like ‘When I rule’, never thinking that they should destroy the rules, keeping that power structure that they hate intact and thinking themselves better than the last fool in the slot. Even I gained the title of King, through no effort and with no one to rule, because people want to quantify things. It's all fake, Adeline,” he reached out and touched her on the shoulder. “Do you know why I am so very proud of my son? He was born knowing this. There are no rules to being a person, or a people, and there are no rules that will save you in the end. You make up your own game and then everyone else has to play it if you tell them to. The more you put them off balance the more you reveal their flaws instead of your own.”

“That’s...weirdly inspiring. Thanks,” Adeline said, looking down to Pietro. Yeah, she could definitely see what he was talking about. “I guess I just don’t want to disappoint people, or offend someone.”

“Please,” he said, waving a hand. “There are tyrants of all stripes all across the globe, and they don’t often stay up at night worrying about such things. I think your particular brand of leadership would be refreshing rather than irritating. No matter how hard you push your morality would stop you far before someone else would.”

“Even if Etzel sometimes gets mad that I eat with my hands when I’m not supposed to?”

“See? That’s fun. I want to see what game you come up with.”

---

She walked back to the office, intent on taking at least the night to mull things over.

She hated that stupid castle. It was a huge nightmare of a building, one Grenfell couldn’t keep and one that each time she looked up at it reminded her of what would happen if she failed. She’d probably end up like Nimue had- angry, holing herself up and blaming herself for what had happened to her friends and charges. There was nothing good about the place, really, and now she was expected to live in it? Maybe she could talk them out of that after a week or so.

Adeline paused in her thoughts when she saw March walking up to her. Alone, which was unusual, aside from the times when he’d get bored and want to spar for fun. It had never been particularly fun on her end, but he was definitely teaching her how to take a punch, and maybe one day she’d actually win.

Well. Probably not, but it was good practice. He wasn’t doing his normal fast paced walk towards her if that’s what he wanted. “Yeah bud, what’s up?” she asked him. March stopped about a foot away from her, crossing his arms and tilting his head.

Usually that meant he wanted to know something. He raised a hand and slowly signed out: “Queen now?”

She let out another irritated and defeated sigh. It seemed that’s all she was doing tonight. “I...I don’t know. I guess?” He was just standing there, head tilted at the slightest angle. “Look if I do become a Queen, I promise that if I ever get out of hand I fully expect you to break my arms. In fact I’d want you to.”

Still standing there, arms crossed. “Arms and legs?” she tried. Nope, no change. “Okay...everything except my skull and neck?”

He nodded, raising a hand again to sign out: “Enforcer?” before pointing to himself.

“I….if you want to?” she said as a squeak. He probably did know how ranks and titles worked more than she did. “What does an enforcer do, exactly?”

“Hit people for you,” he signed. “I will do that until I do not like who you ask me to hit.”

“Deal,” she said with a smile. 

[tellytantra]

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The Episode starts with Akhilesh saying I will find about Kartik. Surekha says Kartik has no idea about your project, but Manish did the limit. Suwarna and Kartik come home. Manish asks where were you. Suwarna says Kartik took a big decision. Dadi asks them to say. Suwarna tells them. They get shocked. Manish asks are you sure. Suwarna says we have thought a lot about this. Naksh talks to doctor on call. Rajshri talks to Shaurya about Naira’s illness. Devyaani checks her books. Naira sees everyone worried. She sees Kartik coming. Chukar gai….plays….. He asks don’t you need me, let me come to you. She signs no and cries. She sees him gone. She holds Naitik’s hand. Bhabhimaa says its fine we didn’t tell Kirti, but Kartik… Naira says no, don’t tell him. Rajshri says why he should know. Naira says I don’t want him to know. Naksh says calm down, she is right, why shall we tell them, they will get some other meaning. She thinks sorry Kartik, I m scared of your reaction. Kartik plays squash and recalls Naira. He shouts Naira….. Rajshri and Devyaani ask Naitik to think positive. He says some days pass in peace and then Lord brings big problem in front of mt, mum and Akshara left me and now my princess. Bhabhimaa holds him. He says I can’t tolerate if anything happens to Naira, I m scared. Rajshri says you don’t need to worry, you have three mums. They all pacify him. Rajshri says Akshara’s love and determination got you back from death. Devyaani says we will be with Naira. Bhabhimaa says we will fight for Naira. Rajshri says Naira will fight for herself also. Devyaani says yes, we all will fight, Naira needs us, we can’t fall weak. Bhabhimaa says yes. Naksh says I spoke to doctor, I got the slot for surgery. Its morning, Rajshri asks pandit to pray for Naira, she is going abroad tomorrow for surgery. Bhabhimaa says we will make her donate things. Naira does aarti. Her hands shake. Naitik holds diya with her. Bhabhimaa says its good Naksh didn’t get Kirti here. Naitik thinks give me strength, I will be with my daughter, support us. Naira turns and sees Kartik and Suwarna. Aarti ends. Kartik shows wedding invitation card and says its my marriage. Everyone gets shocked. He asks what happened, did you think just you can give shocks, divorce, cheat in mandap….. you would have not thought that I will be ready to tie sehra so soon, but you wanted this, first card is for Lord, but I want to give this to you, after all this marriage is happening because of you, won’t you ask who is the girl, Ashi, I didn’t understand her as I didn’t anything except you, like you left me in temple, Karan left her outside the court, think its coincidence or fate, I can’t get a better girl, we are friends and in same situation, its just perfect, love will happen any way. Yeh rishta….plays…. He says life is such, what if date changes and bride runs away, I will become the groom tomorrow. Naira cries. He asks her to come in his wedding and give bes wishes to groom and bride. He hands over the card and asks will you come. He goes. Rishton ka milna jhulna….plays… Naira sees Suwarna. She does tika to card and pours some flowers on it. She wipes tears and prays. Everyone looks on. Suwarna cries. Rajshri says Naksh did wrong, arguing with Kirti is wrong, she isn’t wrong to take her brother’s side. Bhabhimaa says this had to happen. Naitik says its not Kartik’s mistake, he waited for Naira, she didn’t go for a reason, we should give him a right to vent out frustration and stay with peace. Naira looks on Bhabhimaa says Kirti and Naksh fought and got annoyed, I m worried for them. Kartik and Ashi thank each other. Manish says its not happening right. Dadi says yes Suwarna, stop him. Suwarna says no, I don’t know right or wrong, but its necessary. Precap:Kartik dances on dhol and says engagement has happened, marriage is tomorrow, tell me, will you come in my marriage. Naira says yes, I will come. Update Credit to: Amena

http://cattybilli.blogspot.com/2018/09/yeh-rishta-kya-kehlata-hai-25th.html

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Whittaker Vs. Romero II: A Barn-Burning Masterclass in Fighting

Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker fought another Fight of the Year candidate at UFC 225 and established an annual tradition of hacking lumps out of each other. In the first fight, Whittaker fought the bout on one leg after Romero slammed a low-line side kick into the side of his lead leg. This time Whittaker’s right hand was taken out of action in the first round and Romero’s right eye was almost completely closed in the second. But that is the nature of fighting: nothing ever goes exactly to plan and the combatants are often left making the best of what they have left.

In our Tactical Guide we heaped praise on Whittaker’s tactics and overall strategy in the first fight as he drove a strong pace on Romero between takedowns and tired out the terrifying Cuban knockout artist. Yet this time Romero threw Whittaker for something of a loop. Instead of coming out southpaw, as he had in the first match, Romero spent almost the entirety of the bout fighting from an orthodox stance.

This was a peculiar decision because his low line side kick into the lead leg, paired with a nice hook kick, worked well against Whittaker in the first bout. In his writings on Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee advocated fighting southpaw to put the strongest foot in front, and in order to place this foot as close as possible to the opponent’s lead leg: longest weapon to nearest target. This principle has been demonstrated in dozens of big fights at the highest levels of MMA over recent years. By abandoning the southpaw stance, and the open guard position it created, Romero was losing that brutal straight kick. But going orthodox had some great pay-offs on the defensive end.

At Fightland we dubbed the first Whittaker-Romero tilt the “ Night of a Thousand Straight Kicks” because of Romero’s side kicks and the right front kick which Whittaker went to with uncharacteristic frequency. It was a strike which proved very versatile. It could be slammed in hard and used to push Romero away—breaking off the exchange and preventing a counter strike. This was particularly useful as Romero spends much of his time trying to intercept opponents with flying knees and spinning kicks or backfists, all of which resulted in him clashing with Whittaker’s raised knee or being pushed off balance. But the kick could also be used in combination, Whittaker would step down into a southpaw stance off the kick and chuck an overhand left, or retract his foot and drop into his sprinter’s stance in order to throw his lethal left hook. When two fighters match up in opposite stances—a scenario we term “open guard” or “open stance”—both men’s rear hand and foot can be slotted down the straight line to their opponent’s jaw or midriff where their back and shoulder would normally complicate matters. When Romero went orthodox and changed the basic angles, this right front kick was set aside and Whittaker had to make his mark using different weapons.

Robert Whittaker had an axe to grind in this bout though. After Romero hobbled him in the first bout, forcing Whittaker to have knee surgery and take much of the next year out, Whittaker seemed ready for a lead-legged, side-kicking duel. The champ wanted to stomp on Romero’s lead knee and keep his own the hell out of Dodge. Romero’s choice to fight orthodox changed the angle and Whittaker, instead of holding back, began firing the side kick across himself into Romero’s lead knee. You will see the occasional fighter go to a side kick across to their opponent’s lead leg, but never as frequently as Whittaker did in this bout.

The main danger of the side kick is that the opponent gets to the back side of the kicking leg. That is essentially giving the opponent a dominant angle on you without them having to move. That can be disastrous and you will see experienced side kickers like Stephen Thompson run a mile and reset any time it happens. Kicking across yourself increases the odds of this happening considerably so it takes some confidence and timing to do.

The 52

Since Romero adopted a bizarre cross guard in his previous fight (with the wrong arm on top, limiting his ability to effectively counter punch), fans of the mythos have been shouting about "the 52." This refers to 52 Blocks, or Jailhouse Rock, a semi-fictional African-American prison martial art which is actually just old fashioned boxing focusing on the cross guard, the high guard, and folding down behind one’s elbows. Any time that a black fighter has flashed even a little bit of cross guard in the last 20 years, speculation has started online over whether they know The 52, conveniently ignoring the success of fighters like Archie Moore, who became an all time boxing great doing this stuff in the 1950s. It doesn’t matter if you learned it in prison, from an old Chinese manual, or from watching professional boxing: getting your elbows in the way of the opponent’s punches is always a good idea.

Throughout this fight Romero continued to project his elbows towards Whittaker as he fought almost completely on the defensive. Whether it was a classical double forearms guard with the elbows held high—exposing the midriff but presenting the elbows—in what is sometimes called a "triangle guard," or pointing the lead elbow out in a stonewall-ish position, or in the cross guard (with the correct hand on top this time). Throughout the fight, Romero was putting his elbows in the way of Whittaker’s punches and it very quickly paid dividends. It is hard to pinpoint where Whittaker hurt his right hand but on the last two good ones he was able to throw, Whittaker smashed his right hand into Romero’s left elbow twice in quick succession. That’s the point of the cross guard and high elbows stuff, after all: not to specifically say “when he punches I shall break his hand” but to make it difficult for the opponent to throw full power head shots without risking hurting himself.

Whittaker’s corner could be heard calling on the champion to “just throw it” throughout the bout. The chances are that his corner weren’t trying to get him to hit Romero as hard as he could with his apparently broken hand, but rather wanted to keep Romero from realizing that Whittaker was working exclusively with his left. Looking at the x-ray Whittaker released the following day, it is pretty understandable why it took some serious convincing to get Whittaker to throw a couple of half hearted rights each round.

For most of the fight Romero adopted the high forearms guard and while he did injure Whittaker’s right hand, the jab was still threaded up the center of his guard a great many times. This combined with Whittaker’s whipping lead hook which he will use both as a lead, and as a follow up as Romero came back at him—dropping his level and snapping it in over Romero’s right shoulder. In the second round a succession of jabs and hooks saw Romero’s eye close quickly. Romero’s cut man did an admirable job of stifling the swelling but was never at peace for a moment over the coming rounds. Romero’s eye needed a break from the punishment, and often a fighter will start bringing out the big bombs when his opponent is half blinded, but Whittaker’s injured right hand meant that he was confined to using the left jab, hook and uppercut alone.

Yoel Romero is never a high volume fighter but coming into this bout on the heels of a gruelling weight cut, the Cuban’s attempts to conserve himself were especially apparent. We have discussed Romero’s need to take breaks in fights on multiple occasions but it has never been so obvious as in round one of this bout, wherein Romero did effectively nothing for the entire five minute period. The second was a little more active, with Romero looking for more counters out of his shell, and in the third round Romero finally found his mark. Whittaker had begun opening up with more and more confidence but mistimed a left front kick to the body which slid off the side of Romero as he pressed forward. This is the danger of straight kicking of any kind. It is tricky to step inside a straight kick because the path of the kick occupies the direct line between the two fighters, but if that kick gets knocked off line, the kicker is in a horribly compromised position. The right hand cracked Whittaker over the head and sent him tumbling.

A Balancing Act

Fighting hurt is an area with no solid rules. In boxing the easiest answer is “tie up," but in MMA that can be a smart or a terrible idea depending on the opponent. When hurt against Nate Diaz, Conor McGregor backed onto the fence and grabbed an overhook as soon as Diaz started swinging—Rashad Coulter also did the same thing at UFC 225. But what if the opponent is a spectacular wrestler? Then there are the other options. The hurt fighter could run but his legs are unlikely to be under him. He could stand still and move his head or cover up but in doing this runs the risk of being overwhelmed or having the fight stopped because it looks like he is being overwhelmed. He could fight back but if his ears are still ringing and his equilibrium isn’t there, he is opening himself up to getting knocked out.

After getting dropped in round three, Robert Whittaker performed a terrifying balancing act, cycling between all of these methods and managing to scrape through. He ran away, he chased the single leg, he clinched, and he fought back. While fighting back is often the absolute worst thing a fighter can do when he is hurt, Whittaker timed a couple of elbows on the surging Romero and seemed to shake him up a bit.

But Whittaker also flirted with disaster by trying to remain active. What might have been a clever counter body kick underneath Romero’s right elbow had it happened out in the open and Whittaker wasn’t reeling, simply saw Whittaker eat a stiff right hand on one leg. It is interesting to note how often Whittaker’s short push kick helped him out in this fight, though. Benson Henderson used to use this effectively when under attack along the fence. Notice that here it makes the space for Whittaker to jog out to his left.

What let Romero down in his attempts to finish in the third was his tunnel vision. All Romero could see was Whittaker’s head and he chased it throwing, largely ineffectively, and tired himself out. Only in the fourth round did Romero throw body shots, a couple of times, on a whim. A hurt fighter is distracted, worried, and overcompensating with his guard, there is no better time to dig into the body with hard blows. Not only is it money in the bank for later and a chance to hurt him again, it draws attention away from the head and opens the hurt fighter up to be hit there again.

In the fourth and fifth round, Romero went to the cross guard more and Whittaker tried to answer this with intercepting elbows and high kicks around the side of the cross guard. Whittaker also found success doubling and tripling the jab for damage—just as Luke Rockhold had. Romero scored a good counter left hook on an overconfident Whittaker near the end of the fourth that briefly shook the champion’s feet.

In the final round, Whittaker switched to southpaw to attempt some intercepting side kicks as Romero came forward, more aggressive than in the previous four rounds. After Whittaker switched back to orthodox, Romero switched to southpaw and attempted his favourite foot-trap-to-left-hand. Whittaker side stepped and ducked deep under the left hand—as he had done against Romero’s left hook all fight. But where Whittaker would have been past Romero’s lead foot and shoulder, and out the side door had Romero been standing orthodox, Romero stepped forward with his left to keep up and hit Whittaker second left swing as he came out of his duck and sent him to his rump.

The fight was a pure joy to behold: two totally different types of fighter, each adopting a different style of fighting from the first bout, and punctuated by wild swings in momentum. The judges came down on the side of the champion, Robert Whittaker, but many in the media scored the bout a draw, and just as many scored it for Yoel Romero. While Robert Whittaker is now 2-0 against Romero on paper, the first and second fight could not have been more different and should the UFC wish to sell a third match there would certainly be an audience for it. Though this wouldn’t be a "rubber match" in the traditional sense, the UFC have found a once-in-a-generation rivalry in these two marvelous fighters. It is hard to think of a time when more heart, talent, and technical ability was matched in the Octagon, let us just hope for the love of all that is MMA that the UFC managed to get some eyes on it this time around.

Jack wrote the hit biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By Podcast

Whittaker Vs. Romero II: A Barn-Burning Masterclass in Fighting published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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Whittaker Vs. Romero II: A Barn-Burning Masterclass in Fighting

Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker fought another Fight of the Year candidate at UFC 225 and established an annual tradition of hacking lumps out of each other. In the first fight, Whittaker fought the bout on one leg after Romero slammed a low-line side kick into the side of his lead leg. This time Whittaker’s right hand was taken out of action in the first round and Romero’s right eye was almost completely closed in the second. But that is the nature of fighting: nothing ever goes exactly to plan and the combatants are often left making the best of what they have left.

In our Tactical Guide we heaped praise on Whittaker’s tactics and overall strategy in the first fight as he drove a strong pace on Romero between takedowns and tired out the terrifying Cuban knockout artist. Yet this time Romero threw Whittaker for something of a loop. Instead of coming out southpaw, as he had in the first match, Romero spent almost the entirety of the bout fighting from an orthodox stance.

This was a peculiar decision because his low line side kick into the lead leg, paired with a nice hook kick, worked well against Whittaker in the first bout. In his writings on Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee advocated fighting southpaw to put the strongest foot in front, and in order to place this foot as close as possible to the opponent’s lead leg: longest weapon to nearest target. This principle has been demonstrated in dozens of big fights at the highest levels of MMA over recent years. By abandoning the southpaw stance, and the open guard position it created, Romero was losing that brutal straight kick. But going orthodox had some great pay-offs on the defensive end.

At Fightland we dubbed the first Whittaker-Romero tilt the “ Night of a Thousand Straight Kicks” because of Romero’s side kicks and the right front kick which Whittaker went to with uncharacteristic frequency. It was a strike which proved very versatile. It could be slammed in hard and used to push Romero away—breaking off the exchange and preventing a counter strike. This was particularly useful as Romero spends much of his time trying to intercept opponents with flying knees and spinning kicks or backfists, all of which resulted in him clashing with Whittaker’s raised knee or being pushed off balance. But the kick could also be used in combination, Whittaker would step down into a southpaw stance off the kick and chuck an overhand left, or retract his foot and drop into his sprinter’s stance in order to throw his lethal left hook. When two fighters match up in opposite stances—a scenario we term “open guard” or “open stance”—both men’s rear hand and foot can be slotted down the straight line to their opponent’s jaw or midriff where their back and shoulder would normally complicate matters. When Romero went orthodox and changed the basic angles, this right front kick was set aside and Whittaker had to make his mark using different weapons.

Robert Whittaker had an axe to grind in this bout though. After Romero hobbled him in the first bout, forcing Whittaker to have knee surgery and take much of the next year out, Whittaker seemed ready for a lead-legged, side-kicking duel. The champ wanted to stomp on Romero’s lead knee and keep his own the hell out of Dodge. Romero’s choice to fight orthodox changed the angle and Whittaker, instead of holding back, began firing the side kick across himself into Romero’s lead knee. You will see the occasional fighter go to a side kick across to their opponent’s lead leg, but never as frequently as Whittaker did in this bout.

The main danger of the side kick is that the opponent gets to the back side of the kicking leg. That is essentially giving the opponent a dominant angle on you without them having to move. That can be disastrous and you will see experienced side kickers like Stephen Thompson run a mile and reset any time it happens. Kicking across yourself increases the odds of this happening considerably so it takes some confidence and timing to do.

The 52

Since Romero adopted a bizarre cross guard in his previous fight (with the wrong arm on top, limiting his ability to effectively counter punch), fans of the mythos have been shouting about “the 52.” This refers to 52 Blocks, or Jailhouse Rock, a semi-fictional African-American prison martial art which is actually just old fashioned boxing focusing on the cross guard, the high guard, and folding down behind one’s elbows. Any time that a black fighter has flashed even a little bit of cross guard in the last 20 years, speculation has started online over whether they know The 52, conveniently ignoring the success of fighters like Archie Moore, who became an all time boxing great doing this stuff in the 1950s. It doesn’t matter if you learned it in prison, from an old Chinese manual, or from watching professional boxing: getting your elbows in the way of the opponent’s punches is always a good idea.

Throughout this fight Romero continued to project his elbows towards Whittaker as he fought almost completely on the defensive. Whether it was a classical double forearms guard with the elbows held high—exposing the midriff but presenting the elbows—in what is sometimes called a “triangle guard,” or pointing the lead elbow out in a stonewall-ish position, or in the cross guard (with the correct hand on top this time). Throughout the fight, Romero was putting his elbows in the way of Whittaker’s punches and it very quickly paid dividends. It is hard to pinpoint where Whittaker hurt his right hand but on the last two good ones he was able to throw, Whittaker smashed his right hand into Romero’s left elbow twice in quick succession. That’s the point of the cross guard and high elbows stuff, after all: not to specifically say “when he punches I shall break his hand” but to make it difficult for the opponent to throw full power head shots without risking hurting himself.

Whittaker’s corner could be heard calling on the champion to “just throw it” throughout the bout. The chances are that his corner weren’t trying to get him to hit Romero as hard as he could with his apparently broken hand, but rather wanted to keep Romero from realizing that Whittaker was working exclusively with his left. Looking at the x-ray Whittaker released the following day, it is pretty understandable why it took some serious convincing to get Whittaker to throw a couple of half hearted rights each round.

For most of the fight Romero adopted the high forearms guard and while he did injure Whittaker’s right hand, the jab was still threaded up the center of his guard a great many times. This combined with Whittaker’s whipping lead hook which he will use both as a lead, and as a follow up as Romero came back at him—dropping his level and snapping it in over Romero’s right shoulder. In the second round a succession of jabs and hooks saw Romero’s eye close quickly. Romero’s cut man did an admirable job of stifling the swelling but was never at peace for a moment over the coming rounds. Romero’s eye needed a break from the punishment, and often a fighter will start bringing out the big bombs when his opponent is half blinded, but Whittaker’s injured right hand meant that he was confined to using the left jab, hook and uppercut alone.

Yoel Romero is never a high volume fighter but coming into this bout on the heels of a gruelling weight cut, the Cuban’s attempts to conserve himself were especially apparent. We have discussed Romero’s need to take breaks in fights on multiple occasions but it has never been so obvious as in round one of this bout, wherein Romero did effectively nothing for the entire five minute period. The second was a little more active, with Romero looking for more counters out of his shell, and in the third round Romero finally found his mark. Whittaker had begun opening up with more and more confidence but mistimed a left front kick to the body which slid off the side of Romero as he pressed forward. This is the danger of straight kicking of any kind. It is tricky to step inside a straight kick because the path of the kick occupies the direct line between the two fighters, but if that kick gets knocked off line, the kicker is in a horribly compromised position. The right hand cracked Whittaker over the head and sent him tumbling.

A Balancing Act

Fighting hurt is an area with no solid rules. In boxing the easiest answer is “tie up,” but in MMA that can be a smart or a terrible idea depending on the opponent. When hurt against Nate Diaz, Conor McGregor backed onto the fence and grabbed an overhook as soon as Diaz started swinging—Rashad Coulter also did the same thing at UFC 225. But what if the opponent is a spectacular wrestler? Then there are the other options. The hurt fighter could run but his legs are unlikely to be under him. He could stand still and move his head or cover up but in doing this runs the risk of being overwhelmed or having the fight stopped because it looks like he is being overwhelmed. He could fight back but if his ears are still ringing and his equilibrium isn’t there, he is opening himself up to getting knocked out.

After getting dropped in round three, Robert Whittaker performed a terrifying balancing act, cycling between all of these methods and managing to scrape through. He ran away, he chased the single leg, he clinched, and he fought back. While fighting back is often the absolute worst thing a fighter can do when he is hurt, Whittaker timed a couple of elbows on the surging Romero and seemed to shake him up a bit.

But Whittaker also flirted with disaster by trying to remain active. What might have been a clever counter body kick underneath Romero’s right elbow had it happened out in the open and Whittaker wasn’t reeling, simply saw Whittaker eat a stiff right hand on one leg. It is interesting to note how often Whittaker’s short push kick helped him out in this fight, though. Benson Henderson used to use this effectively when under attack along the fence. Notice that here it makes the space for Whittaker to jog out to his left.

What let Romero down in his attempts to finish in the third was his tunnel vision. All Romero could see was Whittaker’s head and he chased it throwing, largely ineffectively, and tired himself out. Only in the fourth round did Romero throw body shots, a couple of times, on a whim. A hurt fighter is distracted, worried, and overcompensating with his guard, there is no better time to dig into the body with hard blows. Not only is it money in the bank for later and a chance to hurt him again, it draws attention away from the head and opens the hurt fighter up to be hit there again.

In the fourth and fifth round, Romero went to the cross guard more and Whittaker tried to answer this with intercepting elbows and high kicks around the side of the cross guard. Whittaker also found success doubling and tripling the jab for damage—just as Luke Rockhold had. Romero scored a good counter left hook on an overconfident Whittaker near the end of the fourth that briefly shook the champion’s feet.

In the final round, Whittaker switched to southpaw to attempt some intercepting side kicks as Romero came forward, more aggressive than in the previous four rounds. After Whittaker switched back to orthodox, Romero switched to southpaw and attempted his favourite foot-trap-to-left-hand. Whittaker side stepped and ducked deep under the left hand—as he had done against Romero’s left hook all fight. But where Whittaker would have been past Romero’s lead foot and shoulder, and out the side door had Romero been standing orthodox, Romero stepped forward with his left to keep up and hit Whittaker second left swing as he came out of his duck and sent him to his rump.

The fight was a pure joy to behold: two totally different types of fighter, each adopting a different style of fighting from the first bout, and punctuated by wild swings in momentum. The judges came down on the side of the champion, Robert Whittaker, but many in the media scored the bout a draw, and just as many scored it for Yoel Romero. While Robert Whittaker is now 2-0 against Romero on paper, the first and second fight could not have been more different and should the UFC wish to sell a third match there would certainly be an audience for it. Though this wouldn’t be a “rubber match” in the traditional sense, the UFC have found a once-in-a-generation rivalry in these two marvelous fighters. It is hard to think of a time when more heart, talent, and technical ability was matched in the Octagon, let us just hope for the love of all that is MMA that the UFC managed to get some eyes on it this time around.

Jack wrote the hit biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By Podcast

Whittaker Vs. Romero II: A Barn-Burning Masterclass in Fighting syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com

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Finding the Best Music Production

Now let us see where you can discover the music app that is ideal to keep a teenager living and strong's audio interest. We shall compare the benefits of hiring a music teacher of having teachers with those.

First comprehend that this is the age when children are fascinated from the external world and they're more influenced by their friends than by you to have an influence in your adolescent as parents. The way in this case is gently directing and guiding them. You need to make full use of the youngster's new surroundings!

If your kid's friends or classmates are studying music as well, this can be a large plus. Being in the company of fellow students is excellent!

However, of course it is highly unlikely that the classmates of your kid might want to take up music education as an activity because it requires years of dedication. But if your son or daughter joins a music college, all of the advantages include on a platter. There your teenager will have a lot of buddies pursuing the exact same goal - audio. The advantages of studying along with "musical" friends and visiting the audio school two-three times each week are all wonderful.

Here your child will develop interests that are totally different from those of other children. The kids at music school socialize at a higher level - a "musical" degree. They keep advancing upon their abilities and talents and learn from each other. Thus, it is that your child will find the best music program and sustain and develop his/her interest in songs.

Moreover, as there are lots of levels of music courses at music colleges, group of the pupils is simple and they'll be with the exact same group of the time. The tiny world over the music school is beneficial and no teacher can emulate this setting and assert that his/her program is the music program.

As your child grows older and you obviously see that he/she is losing interest in audio, it is too late to enroll. It is crucial extend the child the music app and to start music instruction in academies or music schools in a young age.

When I was interviewing parents and speaking to them and where they can find the best music app, I was amazed to know that a few of them had never heard of special music institutes present in Canada and the United States! They only knew of music teachers.

Some of them ask and ponder whether these music institutes have pros and no cons whatsoever, while I explain to parents what music schools and academies are. Certainly not, they are told by me. There are drawbacks. Music institutes are somewhat particular about the time of the students.

The students' age has to be within the limits set by each program. And most significantly, the tuition charges are high; much higher than those of private music instructors. However, of course the prices translate into the best music program that gives an absolutely comprehensive music education! Students, Teachers and parents are delighted with the benefits of the child's efforts.

If you're a fan of a certain band, DJ, or possibly a music genre or if you love music, then nothing will excite you more than watching them perform live at your favourite music festival. Today music festivals are hosted across the world and millions of visitors flock them to see some of the greatest names in the audio market.

There are loads of music festivals that sponsor name artists annually. Here's our countdown of the best and the biggest music festivals now.

7. Mawazine (Rabat, Morocco, Africa)

Mawazine is a world class music festival. The line-up included Christina Aguilera, Hardwell, Chris Brown, Pitbull and a lot more.

6. Fuji Rock (Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture, Japan)

Fuji Rock is one in Asia of the greatest and most recognised music concerts and the biggest music event in Japan. Where it required, it all started back in 1997 Place at the base of Mount Fuji, however, has been held since 1999 at the Naeba Ski Resort. Fuji Rock features this year in July and electronic music and rock it will host artists such as, Gorrillaz, Queens of the Stone Age, Aphex Twin, LCD Soundsystem, Bjork, Lorde and more.

5. Splendour in the Grass (Byron Bay, Australia)

Splendour in the Grass is. The festival boasts indie rock, hip genres. The tickets for this year offered in a flash and it's easy to see why because it features bands and artists such as The xx, Queens Of The Stone Age, LCD Soundsystem, SigurRos, HAIM etc..

4. Exit (Novi Sad, Serbia)

Exit is another music festival and one of the most recognised. It features digital, stone, metal, hiphop/rap, reggae and punk music. Exit organised annually since 2000 continues to be an yearly event and takes place at the Petrovaradin Fortress. The artists up to now are The Killers Paul Kalkbrenner Years & Years, Hardwell, and many more.

3. Rock in Rio (Alternates between Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Lisbon, Portugal; Madrid, Spain; Las Vegas, Nevada)

The Rock in Rio music festival originated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1985 and crosses across various cities. There have been six Rock in Rio Festivals at Lisbon, Portugal most recently in 2014, three in Madrid most lately in 2012 and in vegas in 2015 and 2017 called "Rock in Rio USA." The festival in Brazil hosts confirmed headliners Guns N' Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Aerosmith, Pet Shop Boys and many others.

2. Tomorrowland (Boom, Belgium)

In 2nd place, Tomorrowland is among the greatest music festivals in the world for Electronic Dance Music (EDM). Hundreds of music DJ's take on the superbly crafted stages at Tomorrowland. The line-up for 2017 is still being finalised, however in 2016, Tomorrowland brought in names such as Deadmau5, Eric Prydz, Alesso, Armin van Buuren, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Martin Garrix, Ti?sto etc..

1. Coachella (Indio, California, U.S.A)

Our number one pick is Coachella. It is one of the most important and arguably the best music festivals in the world and likely, in the united states. Coachella always sells out its capacity per weekend, and that are approximately 198,000 tickets in total. In 2016, Coachella amassed hundreds of artists which range to Calvin Harris, who had been the headliners from Guns N 'Roses, and featured functions like Ice Cube, Zedd, Sia, and more. Due to its location in California, Coachella is also a top draw for famous actors that come to enjoy the festival and celebrities like other musicians.

You truly wish to have the best music maker right even when you are still a beginner in the music world that is manufacturing? To have this could be a real benefit, considering that there are. Subsequently competition amongst music is even steeper, when there's already a high level of rivalry amongst music producers.

The Music Maker Today: Sonic Producer

There are music producers out there who are experienced but really have the gusto to push through with what they want to do. If you're into making music and you wish to get your hands on the very best music maker in the industry you've got to check out the Sonic Producer.

Here are some of the reasons why you should get Sonic Producer for your computer:

Not Complicated

Because it is not complicated to use the Sonic Producer is the best music maker out there primarily. This is a really easy software that you can get through the Internet. It's perfect for people who are only starting to make their own music.

You don't have any trouble making this happen when you use the Sonic Producer if you would like something which's hip hop or an instrumental solo. It's easy to use because of its interface that's user-friendly.

Tutorials

When you use the applications, you'll not have any problems getting things began because of the video tutorials out there. As you get started making your own music these videos will serve as expert guides. It also gives Classes about music production in general. Together with the Sonic Producer you may meet your dream of becoming a music producer without having to wait.

Mobile Capabilities

You could download it directly and hear it wherever you go if you made your songs then .

Cost Reducer

Not every music producer has countless dollars to produce music. The Sonic Producer helps those that are only starting to create their own songs by keeping the cost very cheap. This program can be used by you online and start creating music. You do not have to pay for shipping fees or packing fees at all.

Large Beat Collection

The app has a huge group of beats which you can fool around with. They are recorded change in genre such as hip hop and rap and are extremely large quality.

It's a simple fact that there's been a demand for music phones. The growing trend has made mobile organizations to offer set of cellular phones. Examples are many such as the Nokia Xpress Music series, Sony Ericsson "Walkman" series, Motorola's "Rokr" series and Samsung's "Beat" series.

One is stuck with options that its difficult to chose one, so usually when you go to buy a audio phone whether the choice you're making is correct or not while purchasing a music telephone. Is the music phone I am going to purchase at? . These are a few of the questions that each one has in mind before buy. So we have put together a list of the best music mobiles to hit people who are a hit in the market to today and the marketplace in recent years. So when you buy any one of these music phones you would surely not regret your choice. Here is the list of Top Ten music mobiles of all times.

1. Nokia 5800 Xpress Music

Nokia popular Xpress Music series has amazing music phones in its own lineup. But the most famous music phone that's an excellent hit in the market, is 5800 Xpress Music.It has been Nokia's first Symbian S60 signature phone. Nokia says it has sent more then 8 million units worldwide since its launch.

Features are:

3.2 inch screen pixels using accelerometer for auto rotate

3.2 MP camera with LED flash and geo-tagging attribute

GPS with A-GPS

Micro-SD card slot upto 16GB

WiFi

Tv Out

Myspace and OVI integrated

Fm Radio with RDS (maximum 20 channels)

Built-in stereo speakers

Full QWERTY keyboard (after firmware update)

Secondary Videocall camera

If you are buying 5800 Xpress Music be sure you're running the latest firmware update which has made several improvements to the default firmware like updated software, performance that is better, more CPU speed.

2. Sony Ericsson W995

Sony Ericsson W995 includes functionality and not only the best quality but also will come with an 8MP camera. It's not simply a mere music phone but a package of things which include a fantastic camera, WiFi, GPS and Multi.

Characteristics are

2.6 inch TFT screen with accelerometer

8.1 MP camera with face detection, LED flash, autofocus and geo-tagging

Walkman player version 4.0 with SensMe and shake control

Stereo 3.5 mm jack and speakers

Multi-tasking support. Listen to songs and operate at the same time

WiFi with DLNA support

Comes with 8GB card

Fm Radio with RDS

3. Nokia X6.

The X6 might be the latest of all times in our music phones. The reason is the fact that it's just one great music cellphone with top sound quality. X6 comes in X6 8GB, X6 32GB, X6 16GB and three version. It's an cellphone with trendy looks and 5MP camera.

One feature which was on board was free Nokia music best music subscription which is cancelled by Nokia.

Features:

Large inch display, touchscreen, camera sensor that is capacitive

Motion based gaming

5MP camera with double LED Flash

WiFi

Digital QWERTY keyboard

OVI,Facebook YouTube,Yahoo IM and Windows live support.

FM radio with RDS

35 hours of music playback time

4. Apple iPhone 4

Without any second thoughts Apple iPhone 4 music functionality that is strong although it has so much to it besides just providing outstanding quality. Apple's iPod is a music gadget that is favorite and you may expect that Apple will leave no stone unturned in bringing out the same or more then the sound performance of iPod. Its got.

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Whittaker Vs. Romero II: A Barn-Burning Masterclass in Fighting

Yoel Romero and Robert Whittaker fought another Fight of the Year candidate at UFC 225 and established an annual tradition of hacking lumps out of each other. In the first fight, Whittaker fought the bout on one leg after Romero slammed a low-line side kick into the side of his lead leg. This time Whittaker’s right hand was taken out of action in the first round and Romero’s right eye was almost completely closed in the second. But that is the nature of fighting: nothing ever goes exactly to plan and the combatants are often left making the best of what they have left.

In our Tactical Guide we heaped praise on Whittaker’s tactics and overall strategy in the first fight as he drove a strong pace on Romero between takedowns and tired out the terrifying Cuban knockout artist. Yet this time Romero threw Whittaker for something of a loop. Instead of coming out southpaw, as he had in the first match, Romero spent almost the entirety of the bout fighting from an orthodox stance.

This was a peculiar decision because his low line side kick into the lead leg, paired with a nice hook kick, worked well against Whittaker in the first bout. In his writings on Jeet Kune Do, Bruce Lee advocated fighting southpaw to put the strongest foot in front, and in order to place this foot as close as possible to the opponent’s lead leg: longest weapon to nearest target. This principle has been demonstrated in dozens of big fights at the highest levels of MMA over recent years. By abandoning the southpaw stance, and the open guard position it created, Romero was losing that brutal straight kick. But going orthodox had some great pay-offs on the defensive end.

At Fightland we dubbed the first Whittaker-Romero tilt the “ Night of a Thousand Straight Kicks” because of Romero’s side kicks and the right front kick which Whittaker went to with uncharacteristic frequency. It was a strike which proved very versatile. It could be slammed in hard and used to push Romero away—breaking off the exchange and preventing a counter strike. This was particularly useful as Romero spends much of his time trying to intercept opponents with flying knees and spinning kicks or backfists, all of which resulted in him clashing with Whittaker’s raised knee or being pushed off balance. But the kick could also be used in combination, Whittaker would step down into a southpaw stance off the kick and chuck an overhand left, or retract his foot and drop into his sprinter’s stance in order to throw his lethal left hook. When two fighters match up in opposite stances—a scenario we term “open guard” or “open stance”—both men’s rear hand and foot can be slotted down the straight line to their opponent’s jaw or midriff where their back and shoulder would normally complicate matters. When Romero went orthodox and changed the basic angles, this right front kick was set aside and Whittaker had to make his mark using different weapons.

Robert Whittaker had an axe to grind in this bout though. After Romero hobbled him in the first bout, forcing Whittaker to have knee surgery and take much of the next year out, Whittaker seemed ready for a lead-legged, side-kicking duel. The champ wanted to stomp on Romero’s lead knee and keep his own the hell out of Dodge. Romero’s choice to fight orthodox changed the angle and Whittaker, instead of holding back, began firing the side kick across himself into Romero’s lead knee. You will see the occasional fighter go to a side kick across to their opponent’s lead leg, but never as frequently as Whittaker did in this bout.

The main danger of the side kick is that the opponent gets to the back side of the kicking leg. That is essentially giving the opponent a dominant angle on you without them having to move. That can be disastrous and you will see experienced side kickers like Stephen Thompson run a mile and reset any time it happens. Kicking across yourself increases the odds of this happening considerably so it takes some confidence and timing to do.

The 52

Since Romero adopted a bizarre cross guard in his previous fight (with the wrong arm on top, limiting his ability to effectively counter punch), fans of the mythos have been shouting about "the 52." This refers to 52 Blocks, or Jailhouse Rock, a semi-fictional African-American prison martial art which is actually just old fashioned boxing focusing on the cross guard, the high guard, and folding down behind one’s elbows. Any time that a black fighter has flashed even a little bit of cross guard in the last 20 years, speculation has started online over whether they know The 52, conveniently ignoring the success of fighters like Archie Moore, who became an all time boxing great doing this stuff in the 1950s. It doesn’t matter if you learned it in prison, from an old Chinese manual, or from watching professional boxing: getting your elbows in the way of the opponent’s punches is always a good idea.

Throughout this fight Romero continued to project his elbows towards Whittaker as he fought almost completely on the defensive. Whether it was a classical double forearms guard with the elbows held high—exposing the midriff but presenting the elbows—in what is sometimes called a "triangle guard," or pointing the lead elbow out in a stonewall-ish position, or in the cross guard (with the correct hand on top this time). Throughout the fight, Romero was putting his elbows in the way of Whittaker’s punches and it very quickly paid dividends. It is hard to pinpoint where Whittaker hurt his right hand but on the last two good ones he was able to throw, Whittaker smashed his right hand into Romero’s left elbow twice in quick succession. That’s the point of the cross guard and high elbows stuff, after all: not to specifically say “when he punches I shall break his hand” but to make it difficult for the opponent to throw full power head shots without risking hurting himself.

Whittaker’s corner could be heard calling on the champion to “just throw it” throughout the bout. The chances are that his corner weren’t trying to get him to hit Romero as hard as he could with his apparently broken hand, but rather wanted to keep Romero from realizing that Whittaker was working exclusively with his left. Looking at the x-ray Whittaker released the following day, it is pretty understandable why it took some serious convincing to get Whittaker to throw a couple of half hearted rights each round.

For most of the fight Romero adopted the high forearms guard and while he did injure Whittaker’s right hand, the jab was still threaded up the center of his guard a great many times. This combined with Whittaker’s whipping lead hook which he will use both as a lead, and as a follow up as Romero came back at him—dropping his level and snapping it in over Romero’s right shoulder. In the second round a succession of jabs and hooks saw Romero’s eye close quickly. Romero’s cut man did an admirable job of stifling the swelling but was never at peace for a moment over the coming rounds. Romero’s eye needed a break from the punishment, and often a fighter will start bringing out the big bombs when his opponent is half blinded, but Whittaker’s injured right hand meant that he was confined to using the left jab, hook and uppercut alone.

Yoel Romero is never a high volume fighter but coming into this bout on the heels of a gruelling weight cut, the Cuban’s attempts to conserve himself were especially apparent. We have discussed Romero’s need to take breaks in fights on multiple occasions but it has never been so obvious as in round one of this bout, wherein Romero did effectively nothing for the entire five minute period. The second was a little more active, with Romero looking for more counters out of his shell, and in the third round Romero finally found his mark. Whittaker had begun opening up with more and more confidence but mistimed a left front kick to the body which slid off the side of Romero as he pressed forward. This is the danger of straight kicking of any kind. It is tricky to step inside a straight kick because the path of the kick occupies the direct line between the two fighters, but if that kick gets knocked off line, the kicker is in a horribly compromised position. The right hand cracked Whittaker over the head and sent him tumbling.

A Balancing Act

Fighting hurt is an area with no solid rules. In boxing the easiest answer is “tie up," but in MMA that can be a smart or a terrible idea depending on the opponent. When hurt against Nate Diaz, Conor McGregor backed onto the fence and grabbed an overhook as soon as Diaz started swinging—Rashad Coulter also did the same thing at UFC 225. But what if the opponent is a spectacular wrestler? Then there are the other options. The hurt fighter could run but his legs are unlikely to be under him. He could stand still and move his head or cover up but in doing this runs the risk of being overwhelmed or having the fight stopped because it looks like he is being overwhelmed. He could fight back but if his ears are still ringing and his equilibrium isn’t there, he is opening himself up to getting knocked out.

After getting dropped in round three, Robert Whittaker performed a terrifying balancing act, cycling between all of these methods and managing to scrape through. He ran away, he chased the single leg, he clinched, and he fought back. While fighting back is often the absolute worst thing a fighter can do when he is hurt, Whittaker timed a couple of elbows on the surging Romero and seemed to shake him up a bit.

But Whittaker also flirted with disaster by trying to remain active. What might have been a clever counter body kick underneath Romero’s right elbow had it happened out in the open and Whittaker wasn’t reeling, simply saw Whittaker eat a stiff right hand on one leg. It is interesting to note how often Whittaker’s short push kick helped him out in this fight, though. Benson Henderson used to use this effectively when under attack along the fence. Notice that here it makes the space for Whittaker to jog out to his left.

What let Romero down in his attempts to finish in the third was his tunnel vision. All Romero could see was Whittaker’s head and he chased it throwing, largely ineffectively, and tired himself out. Only in the fourth round did Romero throw body shots, a couple of times, on a whim. A hurt fighter is distracted, worried, and overcompensating with his guard, there is no better time to dig into the body with hard blows. Not only is it money in the bank for later and a chance to hurt him again, it draws attention away from the head and opens the hurt fighter up to be hit there again.

In the fourth and fifth round, Romero went to the cross guard more and Whittaker tried to answer this with intercepting elbows and high kicks around the side of the cross guard. Whittaker also found success doubling and tripling the jab for damage—just as Luke Rockhold had. Romero scored a good counter left hook on an overconfident Whittaker near the end of the fourth that briefly shook the champion’s feet.

In the final round, Whittaker switched to southpaw to attempt some intercepting side kicks as Romero came forward, more aggressive than in the previous four rounds. After Whittaker switched back to orthodox, Romero switched to southpaw and attempted his favourite foot-trap-to-left-hand. Whittaker side stepped and ducked deep under the left hand—as he had done against Romero’s left hook all fight. But where Whittaker would have been past Romero’s lead foot and shoulder, and out the side door had Romero been standing orthodox, Romero stepped forward with his left to keep up and hit Whittaker second left swing as he came out of his duck and sent him to his rump.

The fight was a pure joy to behold: two totally different types of fighter, each adopting a different style of fighting from the first bout, and punctuated by wild swings in momentum. The judges came down on the side of the champion, Robert Whittaker, but many in the media scored the bout a draw, and just as many scored it for Yoel Romero. While Robert Whittaker is now 2-0 against Romero on paper, the first and second fight could not have been more different and should the UFC wish to sell a third match there would certainly be an audience for it. Though this wouldn’t be a "rubber match" in the traditional sense, the UFC have found a once-in-a-generation rivalry in these two marvelous fighters. It is hard to think of a time when more heart, talent, and technical ability was matched in the Octagon, let us just hope for the love of all that is MMA that the UFC managed to get some eyes on it this time around.

Jack wrote the hit biography Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and hosts the Fights Gone By Podcast

Whittaker Vs. Romero II: A Barn-Burning Masterclass in Fighting published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/