Stefanie the Human

Gov. Northam seemed annoyed by how many people were at the beaches over the weekend, but really, that's on him for just suggesting people stay at home instead of making it a formal order. To be honest, I prefer saying June 10 to the piecemeal method of "it's just going to be two weeks", then once the end of two weeks comes up, "it's going to be another two weeks". It just raises false hopes that this may end sooner than it probably should. Plus, the executive order can be rescinded if this clears up sooner.

I can't even begin to explain the panic that entered my head when I heard about Doris, followed by the relief in hearing that it seems like she's going to be okay. Oh my gosh it was a tense little bit of time here.

We must protect this anxious millennial cowboy at all costs.

The best thing of the night for me was Hangman Page's Dixie Chicks shirt. I mean, I enjoyed the rest of the show too, but I really want that Dixie Chicks shirt.

See, I know that, and you know that. The people who glared at me at the grocery store today whenever I sneezed? I don't think they know that.

I have very sensitive seasonal allergies. The pollen count where I live has been pretty bad. I could really do without the horrified stares whenever I sniffle or sneeze.

So I used to listen to Cornette pretty much since the beginning of his podcast, and this is pretty much spot on. I always found that he can be quite compelling when he's discussing a topic that he really enjoys. Even if it's something random or nonsensical, like his bizarre habits when he travels, it was fascinating to me. But I took both of his shows out of my podcast app at the end of last year for two reasons: 1) listening to the same tangents about the same topics every single week got boring very fast. 2) he is either incapable or unwilling to give people the chance to change his mind. When he complains about the women's matches taking up too much time but says he outright skips them, as he did with most AEW women's matches, why should anyone take his criticism in good faith? So essentially he's a cranky old man who's put himself in an echo chamber. One of the side effects of being in an echo chamber is that you no longer fear reprisals for saying some phenomenally stupid things. This is evidenced by how he writes off women's matches by saying "I'm not sexist but...", then proceeds to give a sexist reason as to why a match he didn't watch didn't work. If it's a gimmick he's running, it's poorly thought out.

Hi! I guess I should speak from learned experience here, having spent years discussing with people the validity of my own gender. (How would they know anyway? It's my gender.) Doing any sort of story that calls a trans woman's gender into question serves exactly one purpose: to humiliate the trans woman. Period. Will it suddenly make the transphobic people going off on social media and message boards about Nyla winning the title stop? No. Will even mentioning that Nyla is trans, without calling her gender into question, make them stop? They'll just scream louder about her being trans getting shoved down their throats. You can't win with them. You can't reason with them. They'll keep screaming about elementary school level biology and telling that one joke they know about attack helicopters. And I say that because, as mentioned, I know from experience. I used to argue with internet trolls about my own validity. I used to try to explain that a significant majority of trans women actually have lower testosterone and higher estrogen on average than cis women. I mean, if we're on hormone replacement therapy and haven't had bottom surgery, we're on a medication that actively prevents testosterone from taking effect in our bodies. If we've had bottom surgery, we've removed the parts of our body that produce about 95-98% of the testosterone that we used to produce, which still puts us in line with or below the production levels of cis women. It's very difficult for us to build and maintain muscle mass while on that medication. I lost a lot of grip strength as well. So the argument that we maintain a natural advantage doesn't make sense as we're either actively blocking all testosterone effects or we've had a surgery that puts us down to the same levels at best. And the response I would almost always get back is "well, your chromosomes are still XY so you still have an advantage" (the only other thing they retain from their biology classes, it seems). Which 1) didn't make sense, as chromosomes don't matter in this equation, especially if you're actively replacing your hormones via medication, and 2) my chromosomes actually aren't XY, I have Klinefelter syndrome (or XXY chromosomes), which really means that Y is just there for funsies according to my endocrinologist. What does any of this have to do with pro wrestling? Not a dang thing. It's scripted. Use the MST3K mantra if you have to. But there are way too many things that could go wrong by calling Nyla's gender into question on the air like that, for very little (if any) benefit.

Co-signing. I don't think the purpose of the lashings was the violence compared to what else you see in wrestling. Getting hit with a belt is humiliating, and it's a power play. It's to make you remember who's in charge, it reinforces a power dynamic. Not to mention, it hurts like hell, and can leave both physical and psychological scars. I had trouble watching the segment because of this. I got hit with a belt a bunch growing up and I felt my back tense up when I watched the first couple of shots.

Not sure if this counts, but I lived with my aunt during the summer when I was 14. Things weren't good at home (this was after conversion therapy attempt #1 failed), I needed to get away from them for a while, and they were glad to get rid of me for a couple of months, so off to my aunt I went. I probably shouldn't have gone back but I didn't have much say in the matter at the time.

The finale was so emotional, and even if I didn't want it to end, I'm really satisfied with how it all wrapped up. I don't have much else to say. I just feel like it was exactly what it needed to be.

I've seen a couple of their matches from Chikara. They have some very expressive body language and I thought their submission finish (the Venus de Milo, I think it was called?) was pretty neat. I think they'll be really good in a couple of years, but they don't seem to have a lot of experience currently. Cagematch only lists them as having 54 matches thusfar.

I don't usually visit this section of the board often, as I follow the WNBA more than the NBA. Oddly, that's because of Kobe Bryant. I grew up a Lakers fan, but I was not a fan of Kobe Bryant. I thought he was a selfish player, and I didn't ever really accept him even though I acknowledge his obvious skill as a player. I ended up distancing myself from following the Lakers, and subsequently the NBA, thanks to the Lakers picking Kobe over Shaq (especially after Colorado). I decided to loosely follow the NBA at that point, and ended up following the WNBA more. Over the last few years, I've been picking back up with the NBA again, but admittedly it was after Kobe's retirement that I started following more in depth. So needless to say, when Kobe became one of the most vocal WNBA supporters, I initially wrote it off as typical Kobe selfishness. I thought of it was Kobe only caring about the WNBA because he was grooming his daughter to become a WNBA player. Then I listened to the first episode of Ledlow & Parker (which is a very good podcast, by the way), where Kobe has an interview. He mostly talked about coaching his daughter's team, but he also talked about how the WNBA didn't have the resources or media attention that it as a league deserved. I went in prepared to roll my eyes and scoff at Kobe, but I was impressed. Maybe he wasn't selfish. Maybe he wasn't just interested in women's basketball because of his daughter. Maybe he was genuinely interested in it as a section of the sport he loved. I was looking forward to a future, eight to ten years down the line, where Gigi Bryant was on the WNBA court and Kobe was courtside rooting her on. A next level version of Courtney and Don Williams. The fact that this isn't ever going to happen now, because we lost both Kobe and Gigi today, makes me sadder than I would've thought possible if you had talked to me about it even three months ago.

The only way we'll know for sure is if someone else is the first to get in and interrupt a beatdown instead of getting chased off. I'd also be fine if it's the other way and Aubrey has a cult following, though. Like I said, I prefer the different personalities amongst the AEW referees.

I guess I should clarify, I don't know why fans cheering for a referee trying to break up beatdowns or stop interference is a bad thing. If anything it shows they're engaged in the action. I didn't see the chants for Aubrey as the crowd cheering a referee over the wrestlers, but as being happy the beatdown was over and cheering for the first person who actually was able to stop it. If AEW sees it as being a problem, then I suspect they'll send wrestlers to break up brawls instead of the referees in the future. I also disagree that Aubrey has anything that she needs to tone down. As I mentioned, I like that she's an official that actually attempts to show some form of control of the match instead of being there just to count the fall. I also like that AEW has referees that have unique personalities and styles instead of being cookie cutter and nameless. It's a very small part of the presentation, but it makes a big difference, and I think the fact that it makes such a difference is why we've had quite a conversation over seconds of chanting.