#kayfabe stuff

[gutwrenchflowerbomb]

Okay one more Best Friends related post and it’s gonna be about the kayfabe story they’re trying to set here.

So Trent’s saying that he’s mad because Orange is a narcissist and was supposed to be their mascot but instead they ended up being his lackeys. And that they got nothing for it.

But what, exactly, would Orange have been able to “give” them? He can’t make matches. In fact, the one thing he could do was make/accept challenges for the International Championship. And he gave Trent a shot at that. And he stopped his singles matches after his loss of the title to team with Trent since Chuck was hurt. He could have easily not done that and pursued a rematch with that asshole Roderick Strong.

Chuck and Trent have had a handful of shots at the tag belts. Not as many as I’d like, but I digress. Orange had nothing to do with those - good or bad. Chuck and Trent lost those matches on their own. Was he supposed to cheat to help them? That wouldn’t be very “local bad boys” of them.

My point is, Trent has no legitimate reason to blame Orange. What we have here is a clear case of someone unable to accept his own failures and instead creating a false narrative in his mind. He has made Orange a sort of stand-in, a personification of his own shortcomings and now attacking that instead of focusing on the real problem.

Chuck saw right through Trent’s weak ass reasoning.

[samijey]

Kevin will never not speak facts

[ask-cloverfield]

Poorly optimized Robot girl her fans constantly on and whirring and whirring and borderli9jne steaminga nd heat distorition iot

[bang-bang-gang]

the fact that so much of the discourse surrounding britt baker is sexist/misogynistic makes me feel defensive of her. but, while i absolutely dont wish her ill health or injuries, i do personally wish she’d take another extended break or vacation or just maybe leave the company altogether cause man i do not like her.

[oplishin]

ugh. another thing about the Shield is the way the 3 of them are still haunting each other. The way Seth betrayed both of them to make it to the very top, but to this day still lives in the shadow left by Roman Reigns (both in kayfabe and outside it), the way Mox keeps doing Seth's curb stomp, the way Roman is again betrayed by a chair to the back, the way he and Seth have to talk around Dean's absence, the very first time Seth betrayed them and left that unfillable gap between Dean and Roman.

[prontaentrega]

if i were to write a cape comic i would make it referential to prowrestling on so many levels

[pivsketch]

exercise day

[hyenaboycunt]

I'm dealing with "strangers who I find attractive consistently find me attractive in return" suddenly and for the first time in my life. So I tried to vent to girlthing about how it's confusing to once again be relearning how to navigate social interactions. But she's been hot the whole time. So she has literally zero helpful advice.

[the-kipsabian]

undefined

my favorite boy went off on stream last night talking about the meaning and layers of the match against orange cassidy and the importance of separating the art from the artist in this day and age so hey. heres six and a half minutes of kip just spitting facts

[samijey]

I'm always a sucker for wrestlers checking on/thanking each other during a pin so here's Jey stroking/squeezing Ilja's arm at the end of their match

[petewentzisblack1312]

hi i wanted to ask something but also share something personal as well. my q is: do you feel like your relationship w social media has changed? meaning, do you catch / notice when you are on it for too long and you start to notice, and then you say: okay let's take a break. for me, i have been online for a long time ever since i was a kid, and now my relationship to it is i only limit myself an hour to being on my phone. as an adult now i am no longer social media "obsessed". like, when i am in school i am not thinking about online, i am present when im at school. i feel like i am really close to just deleting sm tbh. it does not grant me happiness like it used to. now as an adult i feel this need to live my life freely.

i also wanted to ask what are ur thoughts on content influencers? to me when i see these ppl i think...i could never post about everything about my life, but then again understanding that it is just a highlight reel. no one is posting every sad / frustrating thing that happens in their life as influencer, only the "great" parts.

this is an interesting question! i think ive never really had a relationship to social media where i feel like i need to post constantly or felt pressured to share everything. while im definitely the most online out of my household, compared to a lot of other people im not really very present online. i dont like using twitter, i only really use instagram to look at and post art and occasionally post a picture of my cat or nature or food on my main account, i dont really get up to much and i never use facebook unless i have to. i hate it. even here on tumblr i dont post a lot about my personal life unprompted, and this is the social media site i use the most by far. i do scroll tumblr a lot, i do watch a lot of youtube videos (though almost exclusively video essays on politics and recently also artist vlogs) and i do notice myself scrolling a bit too much, particularly when im overstimulated but instead of doing something less stimulating im anxious and looking for a distraction so i like. scroll harder. but ive never been like doing something else and thought 'man, i wish i was scrolling right now'. i dont really know. i do have trouble putting my phone down, like when i need to sleep, but i have trouble putting ANYTHING down. games, books, art or writing or projects im working on, music im listening to, i dont think tumblr is special, its just another activity for me to be distracted by.

all that being said, i did leave social media for a while. i had a really bad experience in a fandom on tumblr (not the pwams incident. that led me to step away from bandom and move to another fandom) and honestly it made me realise that the problem i had with social media wasnt that i was using it too much, but that i had a toxic relationship with the communities i was interacting with on there. the nature of my relationship to social media was unhealthy, not the fact that i had one that was a large part of my life. i think when i wasnt using any social media i actually wasnt in a great place either, because i was isolated from people id cared about, especially since i had just undergone a very traumatic incident, and because of that became very isolated from my in person friends as well, even before the pandemic pushed me away from even the acquaintances i had made. i was worried about coming back to tumblr, but i think ive grown and learned in such a way that i know how i like to comport myself in cyberspaces, and that its been good for me in a way. which is weird, but. i think id kind of have to go in depth about my life and how the pandemic affected me and the specific nature of coming of age in st lucia and stuff. which i dont want to do haha.

as for influencers. i hate the concept. i understand it, and i dont universally hate influencers as a whole, but like. theres this specific kind of content creator where the thing they are sharing is just their life and there isnt like a specific thing theyre logging, like an artist sharing their creative process and how they manage their life around that, or a chef sharing recipes, and its not like theyre doing it just to do it, they have the goal of growing a following, and theyre not advertising anything but themself, like JUST themself, as a person-brand, and i find that so deeply annoying and repulsive. and like thats strong wording its a dog eat dog world and the girlies of all genders need to secure the bag like i get it. i get it. but its revolting to me. like. the vlogbrothers werent trying to get famous they were using youtube to communicate with each other and as an open video diary and people found them to be interesting personalities to watch. right. do you get it. annoyingly i gotta put myself out there if i want people to find my art and pins and stuff so i have to fuckin. make videos. sell people on me. the idea of making vlogs makes me dry heave bc im not important i dont want to have to sell myself like im important i dont want to put my face on a camera and implicitly say with every quirky performed statement i make 'i matter, pay attention to me, i need to exist so look at me' but unfortunately i might have to. a video essay i could do. thats me saying something. but a vlog? with the goal of people finding my stuff? good god. it sounds like poison.

[selchwife]

silly sleep deprived thoughts

i love mär so so much 🥺 this morning i was missing him a lot so i listened to the instrumental bonus tracks from idoido, bc those always make me feel secure & think of him, and it was really nice

i guess i’ve felt like, guilty that emet has definitely been commanding more of my attention and active passion, and it’s definitely a thing where like. even when i was in New Relationship Puppy Love territory with mär i also had some bad OCD fears about the relationship going poorly or breaking up with him. so it’s sort of come back in force, especially bc i go such long stretches so focused on emet by comparison.

and it’s like. it’s quiet and it’s loose and it’s not so focused and active, but it’s not like i don’t love mär anymore. the thought of not loving him like, really repulses and upsets me, and it always makes me happy to see him and think about him and hear his music. i don’t sit and think about him as much or engage with the albums and manga as much, but when i do that passion always comes back to me very easily. he’s definitely part of my life and heart forever regardless of that, yknow?

idk. i’ve been thinking a lot about it and i think it will help me with this silly guilt to talk about it openly. i guess a fear of mine in this vein has definitely been like, the worry about “well, if i fuck this up or if this relationship ends (nevermind that i don’t want it to), what will people Think?”, especially because i’ve been with him for so long and it’s been a big part of my Presence Online and within this community for years. i think there’s pressure i’m putting on myself to “perform” my feelings for mär for no real good reason, and i think some of it probably comes from the shitty waifuism subreddit standards i felt beholden to. really a lot of communities like that are VERY about publicly performing your relationship and attaching yourself at the hip to your f/o monogamously for all eternity such that any hiccup in the relationship feels like a loss of identity, and probably most people involved in those spaces are the same level of neurotic as i am in their own ways, so it shouldn’t surprise me that this is a struggle in my life.

it’s kind of frustrating to be back to where i was at 21 where i have not infrequent intrusive thoughts that scare me about having to break up and what that would mean about my personal and public life. obviously i think in this context not wanting to break up and finding it deeply objectionable kind of proves the fear a little absurd; if it were over it would be over, to be tautological about it. i don’t have to think about mär every waking moment or consistently perform love and attraction for that relationship to matter. it’s been six fucking years. i can chill. it’s understandable it’s not the same relationship as it was at the beginning more than half a decade in and with another more recent partner in the mix. gee whiz

[oplishin]

Anytime Cody and Seth mention each other in interviews I go a little insane because Cody’s always like “I don’t like Seth BUT I respect him so much top 3 current wrestlers for sure but I don’t think he likes me or that we’ll ever be friends :( BUT he got me a birthday cake!!! Have no doubts tho our rivalry is real and true >:((( he’s also MVP of the year”

and meanwhile Seth’s like “oh you’re gonna ask me about Cody again? Yeah he did tear his pec that one time. Anyway”

[malewifehenrycooldown]

man it would be nice to get back into wrestling again.

[kay-is-dying]

Okay so I finally got to actually watch the whole Rhea vs Roxanne match from the beginning and here's my thoughts on it (mostly focused on the intricacies of the beginning of the match and unfortunately with nothing to add from the picture in picture segment. Be warned that this post is just me rambling for a long as time I'm sorry I'm longwinded. This is all kayfabe compliant btw):

That shit would have been OVER much faster if Rhea was taking it seriously from the top, but she wasn't and it's obvious from the beginning.

Once Roxanne Perez's done making her entrance, she starts stretching in the corner before the bell. It's a nervous tick more than anything else, but it's still smart, she's trying to stay lose, limber up before they get started. What's Rhea doin?

Posted up in the corner. She's not stretching she's just standing there—SITTING there really, almost lounging but just barely not quite that relaxed. Rhea's sitting there in the corner a little curled in on herself, but it's not out of fear, she's not cowering. She's coiled up like a snake before it strikes, bunched herself up like a lion before it leaps. The animal part of Roxanne's brain is gonna take all that human fear and anxiety that comes with basic knowledge of what she KNOWS Rhea's capable of along with the fear that comes from all the unknown that comes from never facing her and use it to see her as what she is, a predator ready to pounce.

And Rhea knows that. Is preying on it.

Then the bell rings. Me and Novel (@timeandspacenovelist) have broke down the sequence that comes next before the lock up pretty extensively here, but the summary is that Rhea pops up out her corner a little fast LIKE she's finally pouncing (basically to perform the same function of jumping at Roxanne to try to make her flinch), but then starts circling Roxanne in a slow, lazy prowl to psyche out her opponent even more. Perez is scared and anxious already but Rhea starts the match slow and steady both to show off how little she's concerned about it, how she's in control here and she decides when they start, AND to let Roxanne stew in it—to give her adrenaline time to make her heart beat just a little bit faster and make her hands a little bit shakier and give her already panic-struck brain more time to overthink about what Ripley COULD and MIGHT do to her. Then Rhea stops and spreads her arms and takes in the crowd for a second—

—again showing how she's not taking this match anywhere near seriously, if she thought Roxanne was a threat she wouldn't stop and leave herself open for an attack; now unfortunately Perez proves her right tho, and doesn't do the smart thing and try to take a shot at Ripley while she's busy showboating. Whether this is inexperience on her part or just fear (or maybe even smarts if she's considering whether or not Rhea's baiting her into taking the obvious shot just to put her on her ass when she tries), I don't know, but Rhea stops and turns to Perez with a smile right after, and briefly squats and sticks out one hand to coax her towards like one might call a child or dog towards them, beckoning her closer now that she's decided she's ready to begin the match.

They lock up, and Rhea doesn't even humor Roxanne for a full five seconds before bodily tossing her right out of the ring. She smiles and waves at her, beckons her to come back within the ropes again. Ripley's having a moment of pure cockiness—literally doing a little shimmy (the fucking stanky leg lmao) before she engages Perez again! a cat lashing its tail and wiggling back and forth during a hunt

—and when they lock up again Roxanne delivers the first punishment for her over-confidence, though it starts as a mild one that Rhea learns nothing from as Roxanne manages to slip behind her and get her arms around her, locking the hold in by locking her hands together, so Rhea can't just break free. This is of no consequence to The Eradicator however, and her solution is to grip Roxanne by one of her arms and just throw her across the ring again. The problem is, this is not Rhea getting her head seriously in the game. She's smarter than this, than just letting Perez get even a bit of distance. This throw is not a desperate move to free herself however she can. If she really wanted to Rhea could have used a little more effort and time and muscled her way out of that hold, reversed it, moved into serious offense against Roxanne, but she throws her instead. Ripley's just showing off and punishing Roxanne for daring to try something—but Roxanne shows her some consequences for that cockiness again, and thus the REAL back and forth of this match begins as Rhea and Roxanne start fucking around and finding out.

Perez gets her in a wristlock of sorts, it's not perfect control, she's not even really dragging Rhea around the ring like that, mostly just fighting to stay close and keep her IN the wristlock. Call it a bold statement, but Rhea just LETS her do this for a short while before proving she really could have got out of this probably at ANY point.

See, at first she and Roxanne just circle in the center of the ring intertwined like that while Rhea figures out how to get out of this while making Perez look weak, making herself look strong, and decides to go for some kind of suplex or another throw. She picks Roxanne up, but Roxanne twists out of her grasp and gets back on stable ground on her own two feet, then gets Ripley into that lock again, applying pressure and kicking at her legs until Rhea snaps. Rhea's pained and annoyed expression drops, and she makes a face that clearly reads as fed up and basically says "fuck it"; she regains control of the match by gripping Roxanne by the hair and forcing her to come closer to take the tension off her arm and then just slings her into the ropes, easy as breathing, and it seems like she could have done that whenever and just chose not to.

Roxanne recovers from that bounce off the ropes enough to duck under Rhea's arm when she takes a wild swing—and she tries to get back on the offensive but Rhea goes from simple control of the match to steer her way to victory to punishing her and showboating again, stopping her in the middle of a move and swinging her around by her legs before just dropping her, and when Perez tries to go for a roll up Rhea doesn't just resist the motion and stand her ground, she pauses to show off that Roxanne can't move her, and then picks her up off the ground by her neck like she's a toy. What happens? Roxanne gets to chop the shit out of her before Ripley does anything to her.

That's simple karma for Rhea dicking around during the match. Roxanne scores a second chop as well but Rhea halts her momentum before she gets a third with a string of brutal offense that puts Roxanne on her ass for a long moment that Rhea takes to just stand there while the crowd's cheers for her burst of violence taper off, before she starts bullying Roxanne around the ring to chants from the crowd that she both smiles at and brushes off, saying "oh I don't need your chants" in the middle of a pause from beating Roxanne's ass. Can you guess what happens next?

Roxanne gets one over on her again.

That's the rhythm of the whole match, Rhea fucks around, Roxanne punishes her for it, Rhea works to regain control of the match and gets it, but instead of ending it she starts showing off and sadistically beating Roxanne's ass for getting a lick in, Roxanne again gets some karma, Rhea has to fight to get control back, gets it and starts fucking around being a dick, Roxanne again lets her ass find out what stupid prizes u win when you're playing stupid games, Rhea lets her ass find out what happens when you fuck around and try your luck against Rhea Bloody Ripley, Rhea starts showboating, Roxanne gets a little momentum, Rhea gets her lick back, Rhea gets mean, Roxanne fights back, etc etc on and on they do this dance. One of the biggest instances being after the break, when Rhea pins Perez down and takes her sweet time degrading her and then goes to stomp her head in—Roxanne dodges that shit and the follow up kick though, and outside of a couple tag backs, successfully lays into Ripley for a full minute or two after that until she climbs to the top rope.

At this point Rhea's still fucking around though, so after clocking Roxanne to daze her when she's up there and stop whatever avalanche move she was about to hit (and therefore getting control back of the match), Rhea chops her in the chest, and it's mean and sickening on a couple different layers; one, its a chop, it doesn't damage your opponent much it just fucking hurts them so this is just her being a sadist, two, there's the characteristic sharp slap sound when she hits her but there's a specific awful meaty impact noise u can hear it you listen hard enough that lets you know she didn't just chop her in a way that'll sting her skin, that shit just sent a shockwave through her sternum to her entire torso, she hit her hard enough to vibrate her skeleton, and three, Rhea's got this slight dismissiveness in her delivery as well, the swing is almost lazy, she doesn't follow through the full motion of the swing and barely puts her body behind it. Just all around incredibly disrespectful in so many way, and she pays for that too. That chop hurts a lot but it's still a chop, it's not actually lowering Roxanne's hp very much. That brief reprieve from a REAL blow to the body or the head gives her just enough time to recover to be able to weather Rhea's follow up strikes when she goes to set up for the superplex, and then bounce her head off the turnbuckle and get back on the offensive, delivering a devastating hurricanrana off the top rope that leaves Rhea hurt BAD, to the point she doesn't recover for a while and is getting her ass for a moment there until Perez tries to follow up a drop kick (one of Rhea's signature moves mind you, which I think offended her pride enough to shake her out of her daze) that sent Rhea into the corner with a body slam and Rhea wakes up enough to counter that by catching her and putting her down with a facebuster sent from hell.

(side note: holy fuck, OW)

This marks the turning point of the match, marked by Rhea quickly going in for the cover and shouting for the ref to start counting as soon as she's on top of Roxanne, she's ACTUALLY trying to end this and secure the victory already. When Roxanne somehow through the grace of god kicks out, Rhea doesn't shout or scream or throw a real tantrum, she kinda just briefly runs her hands through her hair and huffs. She's still fairly calm and collected despite her visible frustration with herself—after all this is an opponent she should be able to beat easily, right?

Well actually, yeah. Right.

You see at the end of the day as good Roxanne is, Rhea's better than her. She is. And she knows that. She's just so incapable of respecting other people right now, she almost refused to believe she'd have to put in any actual work to beat her, as evidenced by her telling Cora she'd 'put down' Roxanne for her, not beat her. Rhea didn't see this as an easy match she saw this as an execution and almost paid for it—she doesn't really shake that mindset until Roxanne bounces her brain around her skull and knocks the wind out of her and then kicks out of a big move. Now Rhea's present of mind enough to begrudgingly acknowledge that this is a fight actually, and it shows. She's not worried about losing at all, but she's done acting like she can get the W without actually trying. After she confirms with the ref that she only got a two count, she gets to her feet, and she's making that face again. She's fed up, enough playing around, it's time to get her shit together and just put this kid to bed.

Rhea hauls Roxanne up and attempts her finisher (for the first time this match as far as I can tell), and Roxanne manages to twist herself around and fall out of her arms again, and kicks Rhea in the stomach to set up for her own finisher, but at the end of the day this is still Rhea Ripley the powerhouse, and she's still just tiny little Roxanne who hasn't worn Ripley down enough to make her stumble at Roxanne's meager weight of a buck and spare change, she's still just Roxanne who doesn't have the experience to have developed the speed to hit it fast enough to get around that, so Rhea just stands up out of the Pop Rox, dumping Perez off her back easy as ever. Dominik panics at the possibility of Rhea losing and distracts Roxanne for two seconds so she hesitates before jumping back into the fray, Rhea hits Roxanne with a headbutt that knocks her out dead on her feet (which I find really interesting actually, and helps my case more. Rhea headbutts Roxanne often during this match, at many moments where I would have expected a big boot. Rhea has never been shy about using headbutts when needed but this is so interesting because she's using them at times where she has enough space to go for a superkick if she wanted. A headbutt is dangerous, it can and on some levels DOES hurt you back, without hurting your opponent any more than a kick would-probably hurting them less. She's getting more self destructive. And she's always been one of the strongest on the lot but she's even stronger now and she knows it, to the point she feels like she doesn't need to utilize all that power she can put behind a kick.) and then before Roxanne actually falls to the ground from the blow Rhea yanks her close and hoists her up in the pumphandle position and then slams her through the mat in a gorgeous Riptide, and she finishes up in her iconic 🤌 missionary pin—

—knowing it'll get a reaction out of the fans and showcasing that yeah, she's back, and as dominant as ever. (after all her biggest opponents/matches were ended with that pin, and when that wasn't the case then she would use that pin just to show said dominance i.e pinning Sarah Logan like that while making direct eye contact with Charlotte that one time.) Thing is though, if Rhea actually tried that match could have been a near-burial. Roxanne isn't a real threat to Rhea as a wrestler rn, if Rhea would have wrestled her she would have won quick. But Roxanne can be dangerous as a plaything cause she's not a plaything, and that's what Rhea was treating her like, instead of the wrestler that she actually is. Roxanne's the mouse in the game with the cat here, and while mice mostly just want to get away from a threat and live to see another day, if they're cornered they'll start fighting to survive like any animal would, and Rhea spent a lot of this match getting her fingers nipped at. That hurricanrana was the little bite that drew blood

I called Rhea a cruel butcher on novel's post, and Roxanne the lamb. Roxanne was never going to kill the butcher and escape the slaughter, but congrats to her that through all the abuse she managed to kick hard enough to hurt and make Rhea put her out of her misery.

And of course, congrats to our Papi Rhea for proving her cleavers are still sharp.

As if there was any doubt.

[kevinsteen]

is sami fucking okay.....................