"Death Rider Billy"

the line, “you’re going to have to find something else to do” is a callback to an interview Hangman did with Jim Ross in 2019, where, if you can see in the thumbnail, he is wearing the same black suit jacket and a white shirt.

the person who said these words to Hangman was his father, and it was during an anecdote about how his father told him he wasn’t going to stay in the tobacco business like the rest of his family. that he was going to have to find something else to do. it is another reference to Hangman’s new beginning.

i do think that we will get a fair amount of time of hangman trying to find his purpose or his worth without the world title. but i am also very aware of the structure of wrestling and i feel like it does not make sense for hangman to hold to his promise.

think about cody holding to his promise. it ultimately caused a structural issue with the show that funneled him out of the rest of it to the point where people believed he should break it and turn heel so that it would stop affecting the show. he didn’t do it bc he’s a pussy (sorry), but he should have.

right now, in this case, it makes sense for hangman to keep himself out of the world title picture so he can grow some stories elsewhere, as i think he can likely help the midcard young players reach the top if they work with him bc he’s a very good storyteller. i know ospreay came in as a top guy but i’ve never found him interesting until the moment he stepped in the ring with hangman, whether to wrestle or on the mic. he just has that ability to raise the standard of other characters.

but back to cody. he kept his promise even when he lost due to another person. it is not the same circumstance but he should have broken it. hangman is only the second person to lose this stipulation. the balance of babyfaces and heels is something that is constantly in flux on the roster, and at some point it is going to become necessary to need hangman at the top again. that is my belief. and he can do it as a heel or a babyface, whatever tony needs to make it work. i fully believe that hangman the shoot person and not the character will do what is needed of him when the time comes. i just don’t see it sticking, but that’s me.

I think the only difference is that we're looking forward to different point in the journey, which is really cool, since it means we trust him to deliver on fundamentally different narrative beats without breaking the continuity of his character.

I don't wanna yap too long but its probably my favorite thing about him as a performer, his ability to keep a consistent character psychology through literal years of narrative, to the point where you can go back to his old matches and see where the version of him you're used to came from! And that he can do it without being stagnant or making the character feel one note!

I'm ultimately an enjoyer of cyclical narratives and I'll celebrate with you if/when he does turn out to be a big ol liar and goes back on his word, in a babyface manner or otherwise. I just personally draw a lot of parallels in his current journey to my own life, and his return had just about everything i wanted to see in it, so I'm especially excited for the time between then and now.

And out of kayfabe, he's absolutely going to uplift younger/newer talent for a while, which i can't wait to see. Kinda especially looking forward to seeing him going after Kevin Knight at some point, both because i think Kevin's heel run works better with someone calling him out on his bullshit, and also because. um. i have a personal vendetta against 'The Jet', as someone with. the name jet. (I love Kevin as a performer and I really want the heel run to work)

At the end of the day, the fact that we like such different aspects of the same performer is a testament to his range and narrative capabilities, which i think is very neat.

i personally also came into hangman’s journey during a time in my life where i felt very low and his journey paralleled mine at the time, so i love that he manages to do that for so many people in so many different points of his career. it is part of what makes him so relatable as a character. i remember that at my lowest point in my life i watched him win the world title at Full Gear and i remember breaking down and crying because it meant that i could do it too, whatever “it” was — which, in my case, was valuing myself and believing in myself enough after blaming everyone for my problems without realizing the issue was always within me.

Bugs Bunny and Lola Bunny reinterpret this cartoon first published in German magazine Lustige Blätter in 1932:

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'JK Rowling posted upskirt photos of a woman on Twitter' to Cas 'I love you'. /End ID]

No one doing this should be allowed to call themselves a feminist.

- guy at work "Yes, and -" ing the bit me and my coworker were doing where we pretended to be owners of a fantasy medieval tavern not minimum wage retail staff

- at the gay club when Die Young by Kesha came on and two hundred people, all dancing and drinking separately, jumped up and down to make the "- beat of the drums *STOMP STOMP*" as loud as possible

- person who watched me stomp round the beach singing a made up song about breakfast foods to name a cat after and suggested more breakfast foods that would be good cat names

- guy who started a dance off with everyone across the road while waiting for the lights to change

Hiroshi Nagai's paintings need sunglasses to look at.

They look like how it feels to walk across a parking lot on a 98° summer day without a speck of shade in sight.

They look like heaven but also like you'd burn your bare feet on the ground.

Even when you can see shade you know it's not enough and the minute you step out you'll be burnt to a crisp like a vampire.

This feels like I could trip on that radio and fall right into that water, feeling the crystal waves as I drop in.

And this, a nice stroll down a resort strip, where my sunscreened skin could literally feel cooked if I leaned too close to the tiling.

And then a nice stretch of summer street, wherein you could see your face in the flushed red of that car provided it didn't blind you from its sunny reflections.

it's been there for years and they never "stock" it so it's just sitting there. anyway, i thought it would be cute to make a little squirrel out of sculpey and leave it on one of the stools in the middle of the night. i also made a little sculpey beer bottle with its own label.

squirrel REAPPEARED today... NOW PAINTED

a few weeks ago i sculpted a new patron:

and put him in the bar. the next day he was gone. a couple weeks later he reappeared painted... but with ANOTHER new guest: a 3D printed squirrel based on the first one i sculpted (with a bottle!)

*10 minutes later*