So I got a new tattoo:
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Just above my right knee. Some additional context:
Here's the original picture that acted as inspiration behind the tattoo:
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And then here's a comparison of that picture next to the tattooed version:
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Also, this new tattoo is in fact a cover-up of a previous tattoo, which you can see the comparison of THAT here:
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The concept behind the original tattoo was supposed to be Abraham Lincoln winning the world championship in a wrestling match against John Wilkes Booth. I went to a tattoo artist who was highly recommended to me, and I then proceeded to ignore red flag after red flag, up to and including while being tattooed, in which I found myself questioning the guy about how it was turning out because it was, well, not looking so swell even in the seat. But he kept assuring me that it would look fine after it healed. And in the end, I wound up with an underwhelming finished product that would end up being my only tattoo to date that I regretted getting. Got that one back in 2010, and spent about a decade trying to figure out what I could cover it up with, seeing how it was a rather large tattoo, and rather dark at that, which limited my options.
I came up with a bunch of throw away ideas that I wound up not liking, and which made it nowhere near meeting my usual requirement of needing to be something where, even a year after coming up with the idea, I still wanted to get it tattooed (and in fact, the original Abe Lincoln tattoo was actually my only tattoo where I broke this rule of mine, and sure enough, wound up being my only tattoo that I wound up not liking).
But then I got into Babymetal. And then a little later on, I stumbled upon their Dark Knights promo picture:
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And suddenly I knew I was heading in the right direction for what I wanted. And that was approximately a year ago now. Cut to just a few months ago, and I stumbled upon the original picture posted above, and I immediately knew, THAT was the picture I wanted to get.
It represents a number of things: a. My love for Babymetal; b. the time period in which I initially discovered the band and got into them, that being in 2018 just prior to their Dark Night Carnival concerts; c. the times we're in now, where it feels timely to get this particular tattoo as well, as the masked image also acts as a timestamp for present conditions; and d. as a result of present conditions, it also felt like a good enough excuse to make it out to my usual tattoo shop to visit the guy who's done most of my work (and who I quite frankly should've just gone to for the original idea in the first place) and give them some much needed support, what with business being down, and the whole lockdown situation coming into effect literally after they had JUST moved into a brand new shop at that, so going out and showing them my support got me motivated enough to make the time to get out to the shop.
And, yeah, I freaking love this thing. I still like the original concept behind the original Abe Lincoln tattoo, and I would've been cool with keeping it if it had turned out how I had originally envisioned it. But it was a total botchamania, and it needed to go. And in a way, it's almost fitting that it's a wrestling tattoo that is the only one of my tats that I wound up growing out of love with and needing to find a replacement for, as that in a way almost mirrors my real life relationship with professional wrestling, and how I've similarly grown more cold towards it in recent years. Meanwhile, I still love all my other fandom tattoos just as much as I still love those various properties themselves, and I similarly feel good about this one going forward.
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Quoting D_Davis 
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